As many of you know, I spend a great deal of time thinking out shipping containers and writing articles on their fantastic benefits to solving many of life’s little storage problems.
Then I came across this article, What’s wrong with shipping container housing? One architect says “everything.” and it got me thinking..hmmm.
A very well written article that raises some interesting points, and they are valid. Now, the point of the article, written from the perspective of environmental impact of using steel containers for housing, does challenge the status quo. There is no doubt that container based housing is on the climb for its simplicity, security and resiliency, but we always have to challenge ourselves to wonder if we can do better.
A Case to Melt It Down?
The most interesting point in the article was this, the average container weights approximately 8,900 lbs, which, if you were to melt down would make almost 2,100 8′ metal studs to build houses from, granted that would just be the structural component and not the outside cladding, but still, great point.
I thought it was interesting further, these containers are designed and constructed to stack 9 high under full load, so yes, their construction borders on bullet proof.
So that brings my back to my final thought for today, such well constructed and secure vessels are perfect for short term storage of inventory and other valuable items, and the best part about portable storage, is that once you are done with it, we effectively “recycle” it by moving it to another customer. It doesn’t sit on your site getting old and not being used to it environmental “best use”
Thanks to Jenny for this article, nice find.
