container shipping moves 95% of all manufactured goods around the world in 2017. More than four trillion dollars worth of products were sent over the oceans, it's an industry that underpins the global economy.
But it wasn't always as big or as efficient as it is, today the idea of shipping started in third century BC when merchants realized that sending products oversea was cheaper and faster than by land, early on goods were loaded onto ships and sacks barrels and wooden crates with scores of dock workers squeezing them on decks or in tight spaces below ships. often spent more time at ports than sailing and not much change until 1956 that's what American truck driver Malcolm McLane stacked 58 metal boxes on a ship going from New Jersey to Houston. This idea completely revolutionized the industry, the containers not only protected the products but when the ships docked at ports truck beds and freight trains could take them away without repackaging . A flurry of innovation followed and container sizes were standardized in 1966 more McCormack Lions started the first transatlantic container service, and then in 1968 one of the first modern container ships hit the water the Japanese Hakone motto carried 752 20-foot containers using a standard still used today cargo could now be moved from purpose-built vessels to rail and roads in massive volumes cutting transport cost by at least 75% . source https://master-container.com/ This led to the emergence of global shipping behemoths like Denmark Smurfs Klein Francis CMA CGM and China's Costco by the 1980s around 90% of manufactured goods, were containerized from designer dresses and feed to home . Goods electronics and heavy machinery globalization exploded as ships moved Asian goods to the west and vice-versa making stops at dozens of ports along the way recently the Panama and Suez canals were expanded allowing for bigger ships to cross. |
|
