[bvpcvm]

made of shipping containers:

http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=156740

sorry, make that N Decatur - perhaps a mod could change that?

[sopdx]

Absolutely brilliant!

[zilfondel]

Continuing the conversation in the other thread, shipping containers are indeed almost free - no shipping company wants to ship empty containers back to China, as they lose money doing it. So China continues to pump out new containers... I think they run about $2,000 a pop for a 40 footer.

They produced about 1 million TEUs a year in 2000, and will hit 5.8 million TEUs for 2007...

[65MAX]

That's interesting. But aren't the Chinese then using way too much steel by not reusing the containers they make? Steel takes a lot of energy to produce. It seems like they would hit a cost benefit ratio at some point, where it costs more to produce new container units than it does to import empty containers from the US.

[alexjon]

They're big in the UK

[samoen313]

They are, however, surprisingly expensive to clean up properly. I was working on a project that was to use shipping containers and, at least the old ones, contain so much toxic paint and have been filled with so much toxic material, it often makes them almost unfeasible to use. But not always, as you can imagine. They ruled them out for a number of New Orleans reconstruction projects because, though they intially thought it would be an economical solution to housing reconstruction, they were very sore upon finding the actual cost to clean each one up (it was something ridiculous like five times the cost of each container). Anyway, just a little tidbit.

[zilfondel]

That's interesting. But aren't the Chinese then using way too much steel by not reusing the containers they make? Steel takes a lot of energy to produce. It seems like they would hit a cost benefit ratio at some point, where it costs more to produce new container units than it does to import empty containers from the US.

You'd think... but it's all dependent upon the shipping companies actually taking empty boxes back (not too many US mfgr companies selling goods to China), which they basically don't do.

So we're stuck with millions of discarded metal boxes that are incredibly structurally sound. We could literally build a Seattle each year (metro) from the waste...

They are, however, surprisingly expensive to clean up properly. I was working on a project that was to use shipping containers and, at least the old ones, contain so much toxic paint and have been filled with so much toxic material, it often makes them almost unfeasible to use. But not always, as you can imagine. They ruled them out for a number of New Orleans reconstruction projects because, though they intially thought it would be an economical solution to housing reconstruction, they were very sore upon finding the actual cost to clean each one up (it was something ridiculous like five times the cost of each container). Anyway, just a little tidbit.

Interesting, and to think that's where most of the stuff we buy gets shipped inside of!
Hopefully they have stopped using toxic paint, but I bet they don't - maybe has something to do with prevention of salt corrosion?

[Drmyeyes]

I thought the way the container system works, is that the same containers are shipped back and forth between countries, reloaded for each trip. It seems like a big point of making them of a standardized size, is to support this. They're probably extremely durable. It doesn't seem to make sense to keep making new containers unless goods to be shipped exceeds volume capacity of existing container inventory.

At least a certain amount of contamination that containers sustain could probably be eliminated with better shipping standards.

[zilfondel]

^ well to some extent, but China mostly imports bulk raw materials from the US, not finished goods... they make most of the world's crap right now.

A lot of shipping containers are certainly used in interstate travel, and trade in N/S America, Europe, etc... but you could probably steal a couple dozen containers from the Port of Portland and they'd never notice.

[65MAX]

^ well to some extent, but China mostly imports bulk raw materials from the US, not finished goods... they make most of the world's crap right now.

Bulk raw materials? ... like millions of tons of steel in the form of discarded containers? :)

Maybe someone should start a business recycling all of this steel. They could make a fortune. Oh wait, that's what Schnitzer does.