'When rates get as low as they are now, there is certainly no way of costing it into rates'
DIRTY BOXES are still dirty words to shipping lines - but with little chance of them getting any recompense for cleaning these units from importers, or via their agents.
Dave Rennie, former chairman of the Association of Shipping Lines (ASL) and chief executive of Unicorn Lines - while little bothered with it in his line's mostly dedicated commodity coastal transport - expresses the dismay of other lines at the dirty box scenario.
While you have a lien on the cargo, he told FTW, you could raise a deposit - with this supervised by surveyors. You could have a surcharge.
When rates get as low as they are now, there is certainly no way of costing it into rates.
There's not really much that you can do, according to John Turner, m.d. of P&O Nedlloyd in SA.
It's a perennial, I think, he said. Contractually-speaking, the shipping line is within its contracted rights to expect a box to be returned clean.
But I haven't come up with a good solution to how to work this one out.
The way Turner looks at it, it's a two-fold problem. The first could be loosely described as general rubbish and garbage left in a box, he said. That's obviously a nuisance, and does involve a cleaning cost - but it's something you've got to accept.
The second is when the mess can be described as damage. Then, I think, the shipowner is entitled to recompense.
It has also not proved possible for FTW to get any sort of estimate of what this perennial problem costs the lines.
The nearest we could get
is Rennie's calculations of the various ratios in the cost of a box.
The cost of equipment is tremendous, he said. Cost of imbalance of trade and returning empty boxes; delays; damaged units; cleaning; insurance; landside transport. They all come into operational costs.
If we measure cost of rental at US$1 a day, then these operational costs would be US$3 a day.
Somewhere in that US$3 is the cleaning cost. But what proportion is not known - although part of a percentage point is the likely level.
Whatever the problem, and whatever its eventual solution, SA shouldn't feel alone, according to Turner . It's a problem everywhere, he said.
