Container made out of composite on show at Sea Asia

Attendees of this week’s Sea Asia exhibition in Singapore are able to get a glimpse of the Unit One, a container made out of composite developed by Swiss firm AELER.

As the 20 ft container is made of composite materials, it is much stronger than today’s steel boxes, able to carry 28 rather than 24 tonnes. The developers claim also that its aerodynamic exterior leads to 4% savings on fuel consumption.

Last year AELER completed 80 pilot projects with blue-chip companies like Procter & Gamble and production is now being ramped up to thousands of containers.

The metal shipping container has not changed much since its invention in the 1950s, but new inventions are being marketed including Staxxon from the US whose folding shipping container comes with an accordion-style design, while in India Shallow Waterways Shipping has developed a hexagonal container intended to containerise bulk shipments.