The Versatility of Shipping Containers | LOTUS Containers

What comes to your mind when you think of a shipping container? Steel boxes with signs of dents, rust, and patches traveling on the truck, rail, or large vessels. That’s indeed true! That is what a shipping container looks like. But those dents, patches, and rust tell their entire story.

No doubt those untidy looking boxes plays one of the vital roles in pacing lives of all. Just like success comes with struggle, the untidiness, breakage, damage of containers says what all they have gone through. They are the indisputable king of today’s fast-paced life.

In every field they were taken, they proved their best and that is the reason they are called- ‘VERSATILE’.

In this article, we will be talking about the versatilities of those long-living intermodal containers.

1.Shipment/Transportation: Call it shipping container, cargo container, or storage units but they were solely invented to facilitate the shipment of goods in bulk over long distances. Moving back to the history reminds of the days when goods were packed in drums, tubs, jute bags, etc, and was set for transition in an extremely unsafe manner. Thanks to the American transport entrepreneur, Malcolm McLean whose contribution is still serving mankind!

The data says that there are currently over 17 million shipping containers in circulation globally with the number of active shipping containers at more than five million. In total, they make around 200 million trips a year.

The maximum gross load they can carry is 67,200 lbs. Now imagine the amount of cargoes they ship each year from one country to another. Not every country is self-sufficient in resources. Every country relies on other countries for some or the other resources either for raw materials or as finished products. And to meet this demand, shipping containers lie superheroes stand at the forefront facing harsh storm, scorching sun and salty seawater.

No matter what cargoes a shipper brings- from big size machinery, perishable food products to hazardous chemicals, they transport everything and that too with immense safety and care.

2.Storage: Though the name ‘shipping containers’ defines that these are the containers used for the shipment of products, over the year boxes like them have been modified to be used as storage units as well. Storage boxes are not necessarily manufactured of corrugated steel or of the same dimension. Rather, they are usually made up of lightweight aluminium and are slightly lesser in dimension in contrast to shipping boxes.

But it is nowhere said that shipping boxes cannot be used for storage purposes. Various shippers, or industrialist when face lack of space in warehouse or inventories, tends to keep the entire shipping containers loaded with goods until the vacancy in storage buildings.

You can store goods in them and keep them in the open sky and it will keep your goods safe and protected. The strong welding and insulation do not allow the external climate to damage your goods. Strong locks keep your belongings safe from any kind of theft and robbery.

3.Construction: Over the past few years, these strong sturdy boxes have been seen serving the construction industry with immense dedication. Peter Demaria is the man who is known to give the initiative to this idea (building with shipping container) after he designed a shipping container home known as the Redondo Beach House. Since then various other cargotectures stepped into this field and tried building everything possible out of the steel boxes.

The trend gained so much momentum that today every big small city can be seen composed of container-built homes, shops, offices, stores, malls, etc. The reach is unlimited. Human minds have turned those shipping containers as one of the most useful things.

Whether it’s an amazing swimming pool entertaining people in hot burning summer, emergency hospitals serving injured people during the war or natural disasters, or portable toilets providing sanitization in remote locations area, they are the real example of ‘versatilities’.