The Bureau of International Recycling has announced that the speaker for its committee meeting will be a specialist on container transport issues.
Sundrea Borad, recently appointed chair of BIR’s Plastic Committee, said that Honore Paelinck, managing director of Port & Transport Consulting, will discuss some of the trends in the shipping business.
In citing the container issue is so important, not only for the plastics industry, but shipping of other recyclable materials.
Had containers not existed, global trade would never have been possible in the volumes encountered today. But the exploding container transport has some strange consequences for trade and trade related environments.
The size of new vessels has an impact on the cost price of ‘trunking’ (=long distance haulage). In turn that should influence the cost of transport itself. At the same time the number and carrying capacity of containerships coming on stream is not in line with the offer of cargo volumes. The new very large ships cannot enter in all the ports where they used to call. As a result volumes handled in the ports where they do call, will increase and time in port may be the next hurdle to take in order to respond to the ever more stringent demands of ‘Just Too Late’ deliveries.
More information on the conference may be obtained by contacting bir@bir.org,