“Environmental” fee probably means “Pay us for having to put up with the damned things” fee. In every port city in the country there are tens of thousands of empty shipping containers piling up. It makes no sense from a cost-effectiveness standpoint to return empty containers, and the U.S. doesn’t export enough to fill up more than a fraction of them. I remember reading something about plans to recycle them as housing material.
Yes, they are stacked up like mountains in industrial Jersey, I hear.
Honestly folks, $35 per container ain't much from the shipper's perspective and it would probably cost 'way more than $35 to re-route the to Mexico and have to pay the extra fuel/transport/handling costs.
Considering the nuisance the empty containers create, the fee would be better designated as a handling or disposal fee.
I remember reading something about plans to recycle them as housing material
I've got a better idea. There are thousands of them, right?
And they stack up like legos, right?
Well, why not haul them ALL down to the borderand stack 'em up? Put a smooth finish on the Mexican side so they can't climb over, and voila! Instant border barrier, two or three containers high!
- John
Empty containers are repositioned constantly throughout their service lives, which is about ten years. A considerable amount of planning goes into minimizing the times the container is shipped with no cargo, but it is a well known and accepted cost of doing business. The only time containers stack up and are disposed of is at the end of their service life. America is the largest exporter of fresh air in the world.