Green Shipping Containers – How Green Are They?

Now I don’t mean by this that I am going to talk to you about painting your second hand containers green so it blends into the countryside. This blog is about how by buying a shipping container you can flex your environmentally friendly muscles and feel good about the fact that you have done your bit to help the planet (and got a really good product into the bargain!!).

If you decide to buy second hand containers then, obviously, you are recycling an industrial product by giving it a new life. Most people use their ex-shipping containers as a means of storage. With the addition of a lockbox and a hardened steel shackle padlock you have a storage container that is not only extremely secure but has a whole new useful purpose.

New/once used shipping containers also can be environmentally friendly. When used as part of a construction project these containers can be erected in much less time (and therefore use much less energy) than traditional construction methods. A recent well known example of this was the Travelodge in Uxbridge. Costs were a third . less than a traditional build, and construction took a matter of months. All achieved by using purpose built containers which were put together in no time on site.

Both a new shipping container and used storage container can be converted into affordable housing that is ideal for enabling nurses, teachers, students etc to live near to their place of work/study. This reduces the carbon footprint by abolishing the need to commute.

On the subject of accommodation, shipping container conversions slot easily into towns and cities without requiring much – if any – additional infrastructure. They can be easily transported onto brown field sites and connected up with minimum disturbance to their surroundings.

The flat roof of a new shipping container or second hand containers is ideal for housing solar panels or growing a “green roof”. The use of ceramic thermal paint for insulation means that the containers themselves are often better insulation than traditional houses.

Shipping Containers are often used as receptacles for recycling. Think of the containers where you put your old newspapers in car parks for example. 10ft containers are frequently used to recycle clothes, shoes and the like.

Charities re-use shipping containers to transport items such as medical equipment, classroom furniture, books and clothes (all of which are being recycled themselves) to Africa etc. Afterwards the container is often used to provide the community with additional covered space.

At the end of a used storage container useful life it can be totally re-used by recycling the steel and wood and turning them into something else.

These days going green and doing your bit for the environment has never been so popular. Often, however, it involves additional effort and compromise. With a new shipping container or second hand containers not only are you going green by giving an essentially industrial item a new purpose but you will have a supremely adaptable and long lasting practical product helping you in your everyday life – in whatever role you have chosen for it!!

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Technorati Tags:: Affordable housing, Carbon Footprint, Waste management