Auto Shipping and the Environment

There is nothing quite like a cargo ship – they are both enormous and impressive to watch. They resemble moving mountains along the surface of the sea. They are not the usual battleship grey of some huge ships. They carry impossibly high stacked loads of bright blue, orange and green containers. On a load such as this one, your luxury German car is carefully loaded and ready to disembark at its given destination overseas. An equal array of bright-hued cranes, also impressive in their enormity, will unload your new baby onto the dock. You are a satisfied customer knowing that that expensive car was shipped overseas by an efficient shipping company and saved you money and hassle by doing so.

But the shipping industry is not all promise and bright colors. Several environmental issues are closely related to the shipment of national and international diesel-powered dreams. The auto shipping industry is a new and growing industry and so are the problems, effective solutions to which are yet to be implemented. It was only in June 2008 that the IMO, the International Maritime Organization, organized a meeting on the subject of greenhouse gas emission from ships in general, and cargo ships in particular.

Ships discharge “ballast water”. Huge cargo carriers like the ones described above discharge oceans of ballast water. This water is taken in when cargo is unloaded or when previous loads of ballast water are discharged. When more cargo is brought on board more ballast water is discharged. The problem is that with huge carriers like these, their course usually lines across international routes: water is often pumped in in one coastal region and pumped out much later in an entirely different one.

Our friend anxiously awaiting the unloading of his foreign-born masterpiece of auto engineering does not give this a thought. He should and so should the rest of us inhabitants of this planet. The world demand for foreign made goods is causing upheaval and the deterioration of our environment. Into that ballast water go plants, animals, bacteria and viruses. They are pumped into the ship’s tanks either alive or not in their native habitat. They will be discharged from the tanks either dead, alive, mutated, or increased in number because of procreation en route. All of them will be totally out of their element in their new home, becoming litter, vermin or invasive species. This results in utter chaos and destruction of the marine ecosystems.

Car transportation by land can be said to be in fact more economic in terms of gasoline. Driven separately, a dozen personal vehicles use at least twice as much gas as a single carrier truck which delivers the cars to their approximate destinations in one huge haul. This, however, helps mostly to save money, rather than the environment. The customer saves and the company earns money: this is good economy, not ecology. Everybody wins and resources circulate, but the environment is increasingly depleted.

If fewer people drove their personal vehicle those same long distances, the auto transportation industry would still continue to thrive because of the car manufacturing and car handling industry. The automotive industry is undergoing increasing expansion and growth because of newly developing third world countries. So more cars are in demand, which means more transportation by land, sea and air and more contribution to environmental disasters.

For more information on Car Carriers please visit JMN Transportation.

---

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader.

Cars and Insurance | Car insurance Compare UK car insurance quotes, save time & money