Glance around your living room or office: Almost everything within your line of vision is probably an international traveler. Your iPod. The table lamp your Aunt Betty gave you for your birthday. Your infant son’s diapers. The rug beneath your feet. In all likelihood, each of these crossed at least one ocean within the dark confines of a container measuring 8 by 8.5 by 20 feet, stacked with as many as 10,999 others aboard one of the 4,500 container ships in use around the world.
These quarter-mile-long vessels are amazingly efficient. A single one can move as much merchandise as a 44-mile-long freight train. “We wouldn’t have global trade as we know it without container ships,” says Anne Kappel, vice president of the World Shipping Council.
