Foldable freight container reduces (environmental) cost

The major part of the transport of manufactured goods takes place with containers. These global containerized flows are characterized by large imbalances. The Asian segment is the one that has experienced the fastest growth while transatlantic containerized trade between Europe and North America has become comparatively a low volume market.

The imbalances cause several undesirable side-effects. In the United States, there are at all times 300,000 to 400,000 empty containers waiting to find cargo. For New York, there are about 100,000 empty containers belonging to leasing companies and 50,000 empty containers belonging to shipping companies in various depots and terminals. In Europe the same issue applies, in 2008 the Port of Rotterdam had a throughput of 2.3 million TEU empty containers out of a total throughput of 10.7 million TEU. These empty containers need to be stored as well as transported, either to a depot or to a client to be filled with goods. Eventually these empty containers need to be transported back to Asia.

The HCI Foldable Container is a maritime container, designed to comply with all relevant ISO-standards and CSC-approvals. The container can be used to transport goods via land and sea. The distinguishing feature of this container is that it can be folded when it is empty. This provides a solution for reducing storage space needed to store empty containers. Furthermore it allows users to reduce unproductive transportation of these empty containers. In its folded state, the foldable container occupies ¼ of the volume of a normal container. The folding process is fast, easy and safe. The containers can be stacked together, so that 4 folded containers occupy exactly the same volume of one normal container and this package of 4 folded containers can be handled as one normal container. In the unfolded state the HCI Foldable Container can be used as a normal container.

The HCI Foldable Container is designed to be:

• Fast, (un)folding can be done in 10 minutes
• Safe, Complies with ISO and CSC
• Easy, (un)folding can be done by two persons with a forklift truck or a spreader.
• Strong, a HCI Foldable Container always remains in one piece. Despite its slightly higher weight, it can be stacked as per ISO 1496-1 (213.360 kg).

Considerable savings can be achieved both on cost as well as cost for the environment;

• up to 25% cost savings on the sea leg
• up to 46% cost savings on the land leg
• up to 25% quay time savings in the terminal
• up to 75% storage space saving
• up to 70% of the CO2 emissions of the empty container transport can be saved on sea legs

A good example of increased value for the customer and reduced cost for the environment.

Images

Unbalanced trade

HCI container

Unbalanced trade

Source UNCTAD