Right now, huge cargo ships are carrying five or six million shipping containers across the world’s oceans. These ships carry about ninety-five percent of the world’s consumer goods, and ninety-seven percent of all containers are made in China. About every hour, a container falls overboard and is never seen again. Ten percent of containers that go overboard are holding chemicals that are toxic to ocean life. Shipping containers can contain more than sixty thousand pounds of cargo and are filled with all types of items, like food, cars, clothes, or appliances. Most of these goods are made of plastic, packaged in plastic, and even the shipping container itself can be made from plastic. When a container falls off a ship, it eventually takes on enough water to sink to the seafloor, where it ruptures and releases the goods inside. Twenty-foot long containers can float up to fifty-seven days, while a forty-foot long container can float for three times as long. That gives companies enough time to go out and collect the container to prevent pollution. But shipping companies don’t clean them up. If these containers are not cleaned up, they cause a dangerous hazard to other ships and a danger to ocean life.  

In 1992, twenty thousand rubber ducks and other bath toys that were going from China to the U.S. fell into the ocean; the toys made it all the way to the Gulf of Maine. Shipping container pollution is what we are trying to prevent by making a law to make companies clean up the containers. The plastic that comes from shipping containers breaks up into tiny pieces and releases toxins into the water. The ocean’s plastic pollution problems come right back to us when debris washes up on beaches. This problem is not going away. On average, ten thousand of these shipping containers are lost each year, releasing even more plastic into our world’s oceans. Ten thousand missing containers represent millions in lost revenue for companies. 

 Pollution is a huge issue and these lost shipping containers are contributing greatly to this issue. There are currently no laws holding shipping companies accountable for cargo spills (unless the spill is oil). Shipping companies leave the spilled goods to break down and pollute the ocean and do not get punished. Help us stop this issue by signing this petition to create a law that regulates how shipping companies secure their cargo and requires them to clean up spills.

This petition was created by Zoe Gouin and Evelyn Wilkinson.