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Hapag-Lloyd's steel-floor box aims to fights global pest infestations
来源：shippingazette 编辑：编辑部 发布：2023/08/17 15:19:12
GERMAN shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd began tests on a steel-floor container prototype that could help the container line lessen the likelihood of its cargo containing invasive species, reports New York's Journal of Commerce.
The Hamburg-based carrier has spent the last 10 years researching alternative container materials, with its latest effort offering a steel floor that is not only safer to repair than wood floors that require chemicals and glue but can be kept free of contaminants, particularly pests.
From Australia to the United States, engineers have been studying how to create sounder and safer containers to stop invasive pests expanding through shipping routes.
Pests hitch rides across oceans in hundreds of thousands of containers, which aren't inspected and cleaned regularly. These tiny species can ruin crops, resulting in ecological and economic damage.
The khapra beetle, for example, is the top threat to Australia's grain industries. An infestation of the pests, which are native to India, could cost the economy $15.5 billion over 20 years, said the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF).
In the US, an Asian spider infestation in Atlanta has slowly made its way into the Carolinas over the last decade, according to reports from the Associated Press.
"This is a real issue," said Douglas Owen, secretary general of Bureau International des Containers (BIC). "I have met with the scientists who study the issue and who describe it as a slow-moving train wreck they can clearly see but which nobody is paying any attention to."
The Hamburg-based carrier has spent the last 10 years researching alternative container materials, with its latest effort offering a steel floor that is not only safer to repair than wood floors that require chemicals and glue but can be kept free of contaminants, particularly pests.
From Australia to the United States, engineers have been studying how to create sounder and safer containers to stop invasive pests expanding through shipping routes.
Pests hitch rides across oceans in hundreds of thousands of containers, which aren't inspected and cleaned regularly. These tiny species can ruin crops, resulting in ecological and economic damage.
The khapra beetle, for example, is the top threat to Australia's grain industries. An infestation of the pests, which are native to India, could cost the economy $15.5 billion over 20 years, said the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF).
In the US, an Asian spider infestation in Atlanta has slowly made its way into the Carolinas over the last decade, according to reports from the Associated Press.
"This is a real issue," said Douglas Owen, secretary general of Bureau International des Containers (BIC). "I have met with the scientists who study the issue and who describe it as a slow-moving train wreck they can clearly see but which nobody is paying any attention to."