Moller-Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Lars Mikael Jensen, head of Global Ocean Network at A.P. Every container that cannot be unloaded in one place is a container that cannot be loaded somewhere else. The pandemic and its restrictions have limited the availability of dockworkers and truck drivers, causing delays in handling cargo from Southern California to Singapore. As households in the United States have filled bedrooms with office furniture and basements with treadmills, the demand for shipping has outstripped the availability of containers in Asia, yielding shortages there just as the boxes pile up at American ports.Ĭontainers that carried millions of masks to countries in Africa and South America early in the pandemic remain there, empty and uncollected, because shipping carriers have concentrated their vessels on their most popular routes - those linking North America and Europe to Asia.Īnd at ports where ships do call, bearing goods to unload, they are frequently stuck for days in floating traffic jams. The virus has thrown off the choreography of moving cargo from one continent to another.Īt the center of the storm is the shipping container, the workhorse of globalization.Īmericans stuck in their homes have set off a surge of orders from factories in China, much of it carried across the Pacific in containers - the metal boxes that move goods in towering stacks atop enormous vessels. In China, furniture destined for North America piles up on factory floors.Īround the planet, the pandemic has disrupted trade to an extraordinary degree, driving up the cost of shipping goods and adding a fresh challenge to the global economic recovery.
In Kansas City, farmers are struggling to ship soybeans to buyers in Asia. Take a look at more stories and videos by Michael Finney and 7 On Your Side.Off the coast of Los Angeles, more than two dozen container ships filled with exercise bikes, electronics and other highly sought imports have been idling for as long as two weeks. The association believes that would help make recycling operations profitable again and we would see more of them setting up shop. Grocers would rather change the recycling rules allowing for a mile and a half zone, rather than just a half a mile.
"Their customers are saying I don't want them to throw a bunch of cans on the conveyor belt where I am going to put my food and run it through the register," says the associations, says Dave Heylen, the association's VP of communications. Stores aren't set up to be recyclers and consumers are not all on board. The California Grocers Association says not so fast. The reason why is Michigan requires every store to take back the empties on site." The reports suggests changing things by setting a redemption target of 90 percent, consider raising the container deposit and expand the number of recycling locations by having stores take back the containers they sell.Īdam Scow says, "Our recycling rate in California is only at 75 percent. Last week, Consumer Watchdog released a study showing California has lost 1000 recycling centers, and consumers more than $300 million a year in unclaimed deposit money.
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