Rubber ducks and luxury cars: the strange world of containers lost at sea

What is a shipping container?

Standardized re-sealable transportation box for unitized freight handling with standardized equipment. Two most common sizes used in ground and sea (surface) transportation are (1) Twenty-footer (typical capacity 33.2 cubic meter or 1172 cubic feet, maximum payload 28180 kilogram or 62130 pounds) and (2) Forty-footer (typical capacity 67.7 cubic meter or 2392 cubic feet, maximum payload 28750 kilogram or 63380 pounds). The typical dimensions of a 20-foot container are: internal length 5.90 meter (19 feet 4 inches), internal width 2.35 meter (7 feet 9 inches), internal height 2.40 meter (7 feet 10 inches).

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/shipping-container.html

Where do shipping containers go? If you click on the link you can enjoy an interactive map that shows the world traffic.

https://shippingandfreightresource.com/containers-lost-at-sea/

Here you see some data related to the containers shipped in Januray 2020.

Find more statistics at Statista

If you only have a few minutes please watch this video, it’s really worth it. It is really informative and entertainment to watch. The audio is in Spanish but you can watch it with English subtitles.

If you are curious about what happens to a shipping container once it sinks in the sea you can watch this video that explains how life colonizes the container.