World shipping liners are a step closer now to easing a headache that costs the business billions of dollars, every year, with the successful invention of the new mass market-foldable shipping container. Empty containers must be shuffled around the world to be refilled, requiring millions of ship, truck and rail journeys that yield no revenue. According to Neil Davidson of London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants, the net cost of moving empties is around US$7 billion a year.
Trucks, trains, barges and ships could carry four times as many containers if they were folded and stacked on top of each other. This would cut the cost of moving empties by as much as 75 percent, saving billions of dollars. AP Moeller-Maersk, CMA-CGM, NYK Line and Evergreen Group, say they are waiting for proof that foldable containers work and are affordable before commit to investing.
Because of their complexity, foldable containers would cost at least $4,000 each, roughly double the cost of normal containers. The boxes must be able to withstand the heat, cold and salt water of the high seas, and the rough handling of dock cranes. On ships, containers are stacked up to 10 deep, so each one needs to be able to withstand 350 tonnes of weight. They also must work within the standardized systems used worldwide in highly automated ports. The increasing needs of society for a greener product, shipping lines and shippers' needs to save fuel costs are bringing the foldable containers nearer to market.
Shipping container -- a steel, rectangular box usually 20 or 40 feet long (six to 12 meters) -- is the building block of global trade, greatly raising the productivity and efficiency of shipping and port operations since coming into use in 1957. And cutting the expense of moving empties would certainly raising the profit margins of shipping carriers. The shipping industry is reported losses of about $20 billion last year, according to Drewry.
In the 1970s, an Australian company developed a container in which all the sides detached. But the sides kept getting separated from each other, and the container never caught on. There were other unsuccessful attempts in the 1980s and 1990s -- they were either too heavy, or fell apart or took too long to put together.
Currently there are few companies actively in designing the foldable containers:
CARGOSHELL Rene Giesbers, heir to a central-heating fortune in Rotterdam, in 2007 designed a composite fiberglass container. He is hoping for help from the Dutch government in the form of a green label that would give companies buying his container tax breaks. The container's vertical walls fold inwards, giving it an X shape as it collapses on itself. He says his container saves 75 percent of the fuel needed to transport it, and says the material is as strong as steel but won't rust and requires less maintenance. He says he has a contract with a manufactur
er and plans on selling the first containers by this summer
.COMPACT CONTAINER SYSTEM Boston-based Compact Container Systems has also come up with a design for a container that also folds by hinging at its side walls. It demonstrated its first prototype at a trade fair in November and is now working on revisions.
HOLLAND CONTAINER INNOVATIONS Simon Bosschieter, a 28-year-old engineer from the Netherlands, designed a container with folding walls that slide into each other. He says his company has a manufacturing partner and is planning to put its first containers on the market by this summer. He says the containers are made with a steel alloy and are sturdier than others.
SIMPRI INVESTMENTS Indian banker Avinder Bindra designed a container that, like HCI's, has sliding walls. But his folded containers are stacked vertically instead of horizontally, which he says makes them more balanced and makes it possible to use standard lifting equipment to move the stacks. His company, Simpri Investments, is in the final stages of completing a prototype, he says.
