I don't know about you but I sometimes wonder about how many shipping containers there are floating around in the world. You know, those rectangular steel boxes that you see unloaded from cargo ship and either attached to railroad cars or dropped on the back of semis.Consider all the goods manufactured in China and shipped to ports in North America. Some estimate that there are around 18 million containers in use each year. That's a mind-blowing number.
Well, thousands of those sturdy steel containers are retired every year. Some very clever forward-thinking builders have begun using these containers as the building blocks to create prefab dwellings. Check out this posting From The Daily Green. By using existing structures like these, builders can reduce their construction costs by about 50%. If you've ever been down near the port of LA there are acres of these containers blighting the landscape due to our nation's trade deficit with China. More good are coming into the ports than we are shipping out.
Here's a 2006 Video reported by CNN:
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