🚚Shipping containers: The building blocks of global commerce

[Quartz Obsession] Shipping containers March 15, 2018 How it all stacks up --------------------------------------------------------------- Is there an object larger than a breadbox that’s done more to hasten globalization than the intermodal container? (If you can think of one, do let us know: We’ll obsess!) Sure, a shipping container might look like just a big metal box. But because they’re globally standardized, they drastically reduce loading and unloading times at ports, creating a quick, efficient flow of sneakers, flat-screen TVs, and everything else you can imagine. They also support essential export businesses in developing countries and make items like bananas accessible around the globe. How did we get here? It took some outside-the-box thinking. 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Reuters/Issei Kato Origin Story There has to be a better way --------------------------------------------------------------- In the early 1950s, trucking magnate Malcom McLean had an idea. 💡 Rather than unload and unpack cargo from trucks at port, then load and unload ships at piers—wouldn’t it be faster to just ship the entire truck? But that method would’ve wasted a lot of potential cargo space, just to account for the cab and chassis. So McLean thought … why not just ship the container? Anti-trust regulations prohibited trucking companies from owning interests in overseas shipping, so McLean sold his trucking company in 1955, took out a bank loan, and bought the Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company. He spent the next year designing a stackable, lockable container that could easily be loaded on and off ships and onto the chassis of trucks. Next, he bought two WWII T-2 Tankers and modified them to hold 58 of these new containers. The trip that changed the world—the maiden voyage of the intermodal shipping container—took place on [April 26, 1956](. McLean’s ship, the Ideal X, left Newark, New Jersey, and headed for Houston, Texas. Thanks to the 25% cost reduction McLean’s methods offered, he was taking orders for the voyage back to New Jersey before the Ideal X made landfall in Houston. By the digits [1.7:]( Average metric tons of cargo that dock workers moved per hour prior to the intermodal container system [30:]( Number of metric tons per hour dock workers moved after 1965, when containers were standardized [90%:]( Percentage of all goods transported by containers today [675:]( Number of shipping containers lost at sea each year [97%:]( Proportion of shipping containers that are made in China [21,413:]( Size in TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of OOCL Hong Kong, the world’s largest container ship. TEUs are an estimate of cargo capacity, based on how many 20-foot-long intermodal containers a ship can carry. [4,282,600:]( Number of full-size mattresses the OOCL Hong Kong could carry [790%:]( Increase in bilateral trade among industrialized countries in the 20 years after containerization In the details Have you thanked a twistlock today? --------------------------------------------------------------- How do you stack all those containers so that they don’t topple over at sea? They’re secured at their perforated steel corner casings with a connector called a twistlock. The idea is straightforward, but the process of creating a standardized connector that would work on containers anywhere in the world wasn’t easy. In the mid-20th century, shipping lines, trucking companies, and railway operators all competed to have their models adopted as the standard. According to [Marc Levinson’s history of containerization, The Box]( it took a radical act to break the deadlock: In January 1963, McLean directed his company, Sea-Land, to release its patent rights to the design of its containers’ corner castings. Giving away the design reduced McLean’s potential gain in the near term but allowed the bickering parties to converge on a single model, resulting in a far richer ultimate prize: an efficient, uniform, international system. Watch this! The way it was --------------------------------------------------------------- Immortalized in films like Cinderella Man and Marlon Brando’s On the Waterfront, docks prior to containerization were a mystical place. The loading and unloading of ships at the finger piers involved an intricate dance of workers, winches, and cranes. Here’s a video contemporary to the time just before containers took over. Fun fact! Singapore was so thankful for the shipping container, [it featured one on its $1,000 bill]( until 1999. Reuters/David Gray Pop quiz In 2006, thousands of what washed up on North Carolina shores after a container ship lost some of its cargo? Plastic ducks, beavers, and turtlesNike sneakersDoritosLegos Correct. Now that’s a day at the beach! Incorrect. That did happen, just not this particular time. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Courtesy of Maersk Person of interest The only way to travel --------------------------------------------------------------- If shipping containers revolutionized shipping, then reefers (as refrigerated shipping containers are known) revolutionized shipping containers. Thanks to these cold metal boxes (and scientist Barbara Pratt) it’s now common to breakfast on bananas from Ecuador, bacon from the Netherlands, and coffee beans harvested in Vietnam—and pay very little for the pleasure. Pratt was a scientist with Sea-Land (now Maersk) in the late ‘70s who traveled the world in a shipping container to figure out how to maximize the shelf life of produce as it made its journey at sea. Her hangout had an engine room, a laboratory, and an office with bunk beds. Because computers were unreliable at the time, the work was hands-on: “I used to have to stay with the containers to monitor what was going on inside them when they were only 20 or 30 feet from me,” [she told Quartz](. (You can hear more about reefers and Dr. Pratt in this [episode of 99% Invisible]( charted 🍌The world's most shipped fruits --------------------------------------------------------------- Quartz/David Yanofsky (Data: Zim Integrated Shipping Services, Drewry Maritime Research) The size of the circles indicates the volume of the 10 fresh fruits that were shipped the most worldwide in 2015. The colored areas indicate the temperature required to keep each from spoiling en route. Bananas were the most shipped item, with 16.9 million metric tons—approximately 141 billion individual pieces of fruit. The banana has been part of the global cold chain since 1902, and its ideal shipping temperature—13°C–14°C (55°F–57°F)—has become one of six standard reefer settings, referred to simply as “banana.” 🐦 [Tweet this card]( take me down this 🐰 hole! Over the course of this [eight-part audio documentary series]( Alexis Madrigal covers the ins and outs of containerization. This incredible graphic created by the data visualization outfit [Kiln]( shows the complexity and magnitude of modern shipping. Reuters/Michael Kooren What’s next? Rise of the robot ships --------------------------------------------------------------- The marine shipping business has largely failed to innovate in the years since it remade the global economy. Most companies still rely on humans to manually enter location data, for example, which contributes to an on-time delivery rate of just 64%. A few companies are starting to adopt “smart” technology. Maersk, by far the industry’s largest player, has outfitted its cold storage containers with tracking devices that measure location, temperature, and air quality. Other firms are experimenting with transmitters, too. Ships still require a crew of at least three humans, but the world’s first automated cargo ship, [the $25-million Yara Birkeland, is set to test-sail later this year]( with fully automated runs scheduled by 2020. Built by the Norwegian company Kongsberg, the Yara Birkeland has a relatively small cargo capacity at around 120 TEUs but makes up for the deficit by costing very little to run. It will use an arsenal of sensory equipment including GPS, radar, and cameras to sail and dock on its own. It’s also battery-powered with a limited operational range—it can’t go beyond 12 nautical miles off the Norwegian coast, so it will shuttle between Norway’s three southernmost ports. Giphy But can you swim in it? The new-new world order --------------------------------------------------------------- Repurposed containers now make up architecturally [stunning homes]( [architecturally dubious skyscraper plans,]( [ecologically friendly bridges]( [Starbucks]( [corporate logos]( [arctic research stations]( [shelters for the homeless]( [stylish bus stops]( and against all odds and reason, [fashionable above-ground pools](. In an impressive feat of duality, these metal crates that are the vehicle of modern global industry have become a symbol of a chic, progressive, ecologically sustainable future. How sustainable (and sensical) is that vision, really? That’s a [matter of debate.]( Reuters/Bobby Yip Poll Would you live in a shipping container? [Click here to vote]( What am I, frozen fish?Maybe 10 or 12 stacked togetherSeems spacious compared to my apartment The fine print 📚You can read more about the shipping container in Quartz’s book, [The Objects that Power the Global Economy](. ✏Today’s email was written by [W. Harry Fortuna]( with [Joon Ian Wong]( and [David Yanofsky]( edited by [Jessanne Collins]( and produced by [Luiz Romero](. sound off ✏️ [What did you think of today’s email?](mailto:obsession%2Bfeedback@qz.com?cc=&subject=Thoughts%20about%20shipping%20containers&body=) 💡 [What should we obsess over next?](mailto:obsession%2Bideas@qz.com?cc=&subject=Obsess%20over%20this%20next.&body=) 📬 [Forward this email to a friend](mailto:replace_with_friends_email@qz.com?cc=obsession%2Bforward@qz.com&subject=Can%20you%20think%20of%20an%20object%20larger%20than%20a%20breadbox%20that%E2%80%99s%20done%20more%20to%20hasten%20globalization%20than%20shipping%20containers%3F&body=Thought%20you%27d%20enjoy.%20%0A%0ARead%20it%20here%20http%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2Femail%2Fquartz-obsession%2F1228882%2F%0ASign%20up%20for%20the%20newsletter%20at%20http%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2Fquartz-obsession) The correct answer to the quiz is Doritos. Enjoying the Quartz Obsession? [Send this link]( to a friend! 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