Just as a rule of thumb, a container is easily worth 10-20x what it costs to ship it from the US to China (under normal circumstances).
There's a reason they're reusable: these are quite sturdy boxes built out of high quality materials (steel frame, corrugated steel walls, thick hardwood floors), otherwise you couldn't stack them 10 high with 28 tons of goods in each of them.
No. Shipping container prices have risen threefold. The transshipment companies who have to deal with the containers piling up don't own the containers, and can't sell them to you.
They should switch to a model where the slot the empty container occupies is sold at auction.
I’d wager the difference between the current price of the slot and the value of the container is less than I’d be willing to pay for the container.
Alternatively, institute two simple rule: “No ship may leave the port with fewer containers than it entered with.” or even “no non-full ship may leave the port”.
If that leads to a shortage of movable empty containers (but the port is still full of immovable empty containers), add a second temporary rule: “any empty container stored at the port for more than N days may be ‘towed’ (by a cargo ship of the port’s choosing) to some other port.”
Containers increase the potential wind load on the ship, which needs to be balanced by additional weight. Ships do have ballast tanks, but you can't just load a ship up with empty containers and send it off. If you want a full load of containers, you need to put something in the containers.
Yes, and they do. But remember this is in the middle of Los Angeles where property is insanely expensive and ordinances limit how high you can stack your containers. So in order to make any kind of real dent you either need an astronomical capital outlay or you need to get a bunch of containers to emptier land outside the city (i.e. 40+ miles away), and you need to do it without violating customer contracts on where their stuff (goods or the containers themselves) is stored.
On the contrary, they are insanely expensive right now. Too many empty shipping containers in on particular area means too few everywhere else that wants them. Shipping containers prices have skyrocketed.
