What are the rules of salvage that apply here? Finders Keepers?
Everybody will be doing their Christmas shopping on the shore of Vancouver Island and Dungeness Spit.
Just rummage through the flotsam and lagan and pick your presents.
“In maritime law, flotsam, jetsam, lagan, and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage: Flotsam is floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo. * Jetsam is part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is purposely cast overboard or jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress and is washed ashore. * Lagan is goods or wreckage that is lying on the bottom of the ocean, sometimes marked by a buoy, which can be reclaimed. * Derelict is cargo that is also on the bottom of the ocean, but which no one has any hope of reclaiming. Wikipedia”
I imagine that anything that washes up ashore is fair game. There might be licensed salvagers who could try to save some of the containers. Obviously it would be risky work. To me, the suggestion by FReeper posters that these things be sunk is the best suggestion. The containers are hazards to navigation and need to be treated as such.