I recently rented a container for storage on my property. I looked into purchasing one, all were used, and I assume because as you say, they were made in China and used at least once for shipping. It’s obviously freshly painted. Some number of these are being purchased for storage and domestic shipping here. I assume there are many more sitting on lots waiting for a change in our trade balance some day.
Someone mentioned stripping them and refitting them for housing. The used ones in good condition go locally for $2000-$3000 for a 20 foot container. That’s about the cost of new wood structure of similar size assembled. Stripping lead paint off shipping containers won’t be cheap because it’s lead paint, plus you’d need to add windows, and steel boxes aren’t ideal for adding in fixtures, wiring and plumbing. As it is the emergency housing that we tried to use after hurricane Katrina turned out to be made with ‘engineered wood products’ that were high in formaldehyde and couldn’t actually be used. Might as well just make something suitable instead of trying to refit the steel containers. The costs of material and construction may not be much better, but some headaches could be eliminated. Given the way government works there may not be any good way to produce inexpensive housing at all in this manner.
Since the containers don’t seem to last long in rotation couldn’t we pass some environmental laws to forbid the use of lead paint and other nasty stuff? Then they might actually be useful in their second life.
What’s your cite for them not lasting long in rotation? My recollection is they have a working life of at least twelve years and quite possibly far longer.
I’m not at all sure about the use of lead paint. I don’t doubt lead paint has been used on some of them at some time, but it’s not universal by any means. See here for example:
Perhaps I misunderstood Cecil’s answer but I got the impression that many containers are going one way (to the US) and not back to China, which means they can’t be making too many trips.
Well it’s not that simple. When there is a trade imbalance containers build up at the location that imports exceed exports. However, container lines will typically use any spare space on their vessels to carry empties back to where they are needed. When trade is down generally (as it is right now), there is a surplus of containers generally and backtrading them becomes less attractive, and selling them off for other uses becomes more attractive. So there may be some that are used once and then sold off. But mostly they go around and around for a decade or more.