10 surprising facts about shipping industry

collage of containers
collage of containers

Most of items that we use on a daily basis is actually shipped via sea. Shipping is one of the oldest industries in world. Yet many people know very little about it. Hence we decided to put together these interesting facts about shipping industry and containers.

  1. 95% of the global cargo is moved through ships.
  2. At any given point of time there are over 20 million containers in transit.
  3. Between 2000 to 10000 of these containers are lost in high seas every year after falling off the ships carrying them.
  4. Over 97% of the ocean containers are manufactured in China.
  5. The largest ship can store up to 18,000 containers. That means it can carry more than 745 million bananas. One banana for each European and there would still be some leftover.
  6. A standard 20ft container can hold around 3,500 shoe boxes, and a 40ft high cube can hold more than 8,000 shoe boxes.
  7. A container ship can travel a great deal. In fact, one ship can cover 75% of a trip to the moon and back in one year.
  8. Only 5 percent of the containers shipped to U.S. ports are physically inspected, and that number is even lower in Europe.
  9. Average life of a 20ft container is 20 years. For a 40ft container the average life is even more.
  10. While on the sea, 2/3 of ships have no means of communication and less than 10% have internet.

1 Comment

  1. Nice Post Manish! Thanks for sharing these 10 interesting facts about the shipping industry through your informative article. Keep on sharing.

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