Ordered a new mobile phone? Ordered a brand new wrist watch? Or pre booked a new luxury car.? Do you know how these products manufactured at one corner of the world, reaches you sitting at another corner.? Well there may be many methods but one of the most common and widely used method is via a ‘Shipping Container’!

If I ask you to make a list for which you want to read the ‘Fun facts’, I am sure shipping containers will never be there on that list. But wait, Shipping containers are not so boring as you think. This article will certainly put some light on the not so discussed ‘Shipping Containers’.

All you need to know about Shipping Containers

1. From historic times, merchants and sailors have used sea as a medium of transport and thus a medium to do their businesses, but the modern shipping container was invented only in 1956 by Malcolm McLean.

2. I am sure all of you must have seen ‘Made in China’ written in atleast one of your products. In fact, 1 out of 3 products which you own are manufactured in China and ‘Shipping Containers’ are no exception. China leads the world market with about 97% of the overall production, thanks to their cheap cost of labor and large scale manufacturing facilities.

3. All of you might have visited a beach at some point of your life and majority of you would have lost something there. It can be a slipper, a handkerchief or even a diamond ring.!! Chances of getting it back is definitely low because if we slightly modify a famous Benjamin Franklin quote it will be read as ‘Lost in the sea is never found’. The same goes with a shipping container too. Nearly 1382 containers reaches the sea floor every year on an average. Poor management and bad weather are the main contributors for this. Imagine you had the ability to find these lost containers, you would certainly find an entry in the list of World’s richest people.!!

4. Imagine you go to a party and you see another person wearing the exact same dress you wore. It will be humanely impossible to differentiate between the two. Same problem arises for Shipping containers too, if they don’t have a unique container number. These numbers are never random and usually will be a 11 letter code.The containers are tracked with the help of this number.

Do you know?

• About 20 million shipping containers travels on a ship at any given point of time.
• The port of Shanghai is the busiest port in the world.
• Thousands of containers are lost or fell overboard every year.
• A 20ft container takes around 2 months to sink whereas a 40ft container takes upto 6 months.
• Shipping containers move 95% of the worldwide cargo, of which less than 10% of the containers are inspected.
• In container city Mexico, you can find art galleries, restaurants, cafes and many more, made of containers.

Stay tuned to find more exciting stuffs about this ‘not so boring’ shipping containers.!