Ships have carried cargo from one place to another for thousands of years. Since the discovery of America, ships have been bringing cargo back and forth across the great seas with regularity. Over the past couple of centuries, the cargo ships have gotten considerably bigger and so have the containers that the ships are hauling.
Currently, there are over 17 million shipping containers in circulation around the world. At any given time, 6 million are making trips around the globe, delivering goods to every continent. It is estimated that they make over 200 million trips every year. Steel shipping containers are used a great deal and without them, the world economy would not possibly be able to function in the way it does today.
A steel cargo container is, indeed, made out of steel and this is something that is very important to take note of. Because they are made from steel, storage containers can be recycled. When used shipping containers are recycled, roughly 3,500kg of steel are being used. This is saving bricks, mortar, wood, and other traditional building materials which do not need to be used in storage container modifications.
Container Auction, a company that handles used and new shipping containers for sale, estimates that with regular maintenance, a container can last about 20 years. But that doesn’t mean that once those twenty years are up a shipping container’s life is over. It can be recycled, but it can also be modified into something useful like homes for people.
Depending on what the cargo is, shipping containers can be used consistently on one journey after another. Sometimes, there might be a calling for new cargo that requires new or different kinds of containers. Companies that offer new shipping containers for sale often offer custom containers that might need certain specifications.
Some custom modifications of these new shipping containers for sale might include additional doors, windows, and skylights as well as things like climate control, special locks, and special types of shelving. Depending on what the particular cargo might be, these specifications could mean the difference between successfully completing a delivery and losing millions of dollars in spoiled or damaged goods because the storage container wasn’t fitted correctly for the task.
Over the last few hundred years, mankind has found ways to connect one foreign land to another by way of the seas. What was once the division that kept us apart has now become the medium by which we share goods and services. We have come a long way from the wooden ships that carried salt, sugar, and other supplies to our new land. Now, we rely on giant steel ships that stack steel storage containers on top of each other filled with every conceivable type of goods coming from every corner of the world.
