Imagine trying to sort out 500,000 small packages, each from a different place, each going to a different place, each one must be individually handled, tagged, charged and sent on its way.
That's a long, slow, nightmarish job. But according to Edward Humes, author of Door to Door, that is basically how shipping was handled in the 1970s and 1980s.
One simple — even obvious — low tech invention changed all that: The shipping container.
"In retrospect, the idea seems so simple, so obvious: Put everything in identical big metal boxes the size of semi-trailers, stackable and uniform, each marked with a universal ID number. Make the containers the same everywhere in the world, design ships and docs specifically too accommodate them and then sit back and watch the world change," Humes writes, in his fascinating book about transportation.
With this innovation, coupled with the global free trade movement, Humes writes that a ton of iron ore suddenly cost about $10 to move around the world; a $50 bottle of Scotch, just 15 cents.
