Dry Containers

The roughly 30 million standard containers of the worldwide container fleet together have a floor area of some 430 square kilometres. This is equivalent to the space occupied by over 60,000 football pitches.

Up to a few years ago the manufacturers used mainly tropical woods for the floors of these containers. Although the industry has gradually reduced the proportion of tropical woods in recent years, it has not so far been possible to make a complete break.

The reason is that tropical woods are deemed particularly resistant to moisture and heat fluctuations and hence very long-lived. This makes them a very high-quality flooring material. Their use, however, is a massive intrusion into ecosystems such as the tropical rainforest.