Here is good news for shipping
companies, congestion-hit container freight stations (CFSs), box terminals and
the end users. Something interesting is happening in the box shipping world !
These new gen containers hopefully would address many of the current industry
problems and enable unimaginable cost benefits .
The Tworty Box
Two 20 ft containers that can be linked
together to form a single 40 ft unit ! An innovative new ISO
container design that allows a unit to be used either as a 40 ft or 20 ft box . It has
doors at each end, the second door opens
to the inside and can only be locked from the inside. This door can be fixed to
the container ceiling and, with the use of its special bonding elements,
another Tworty Box can be joined up, thereby creating a 40 ft unit of full
value and standard doors at both ends . According to the developer , Tworty Box
was designed to reduce the cost of
repositioning empties caused by imbalances between supply and demand.
The first tworty box completed its
maiden voyage from Hamburg to Montreal on the containership OOCL Montreal. Two
containers joined together as a single unit were stuffed with 20 tonnes of
breakbulk cargo, mainly car parts and granulate, for Canadian consignees.
Also, Tworty Box prototypes have
received full International Convention for Safe Containers certification for
single and for coupled operation.
Collapsible Plastic Shipping Container – The CargoShell
Mr Rene Giesbers, a heating-systems
engineer from the Netherlands, has invented a collapsible plastic shipping container
named as Cargoshell.
This is made of a fibreglass composite which weighs only three-quarters of a standard container and more importantly, when it is empty, it can be folded down to a quarter of its size. It is now reportedly undergoing tests to see whether it is strong enough to meet the requirements set by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).
This is made of a fibreglass composite which weighs only three-quarters of a standard container and more importantly, when it is empty, it can be folded down to a quarter of its size. It is now reportedly undergoing tests to see whether it is strong enough to meet the requirements set by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).
A collapsible shipping container has its uses.
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The folding containers could create more room for full containers on the carriers.
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The port time of ships could be
reduced by bundling together the boxes in groups of four
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They would also take up less space on land, allowing depots to operate
more efficiently.
According to Mr Giesbers, Cargoshell can be collapsed or opened in 30
seconds by a single person using a forklift truck. He has the ambitious aim of
having a million Cargoshells plying the seas, rails and roads by 2020.
