Are Shipping Companies Doing Enough to Fight Pollution?
Of all the sources that contribute to pollution and global warming, the shipping industry is one of the biggest perpetrators: trucks, planes, ships, and trains used to move goods are responsible for 16 percent of all corporate greenhouse gas emissions, according to The Environmental Defense Fund.
Until greener energy sources are implemented everywhere to eliminate environmental damage entirely, there’s going to be pollution. But just because there will be some sort of pollution does not mean we get to go about creating it indiscriminately: there need to be more efforts reducing the pollution we currently produce for environmental, health, and economic reasons.
What kind of waste does the shipping industry produce?
Because the shipping industry is reliant on a wide variety of vehicles, it consequently produces a wide variety of pollution. There are the obvious ones like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, which gathers in the atmosphere and prevents a fraction of the sun’s energy from bouncing back into space, heating up everything beneath it. NASA reports that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are the highest over the past 400,000 years.
The Environmental Protection Agency provides a list of the types of pollution that the freight industry is accountable for. There’s a lot more that goes into vehicle operation than fueling and driving or piloting them. Unloading and cleaning both rail cars and tank trucks, for instance, requires the use of “acid or alkaline cleaners, ethylbenzene, residuals (heels) from shipment of product or hazardous waste, residues from wastewater treatment, spent solvents, volatile organic emissions, and wastewater.”
Even painting ships, trucks, and planes use volatile organic compounds and other dangerous chemicals. Replacing parts means batteries and tires get disposed of. Maintenance and fluid replacement utilizes heavy metal-contaminated fluids, oil, filters, and radiator flushing solutions. All of these pollutants have devastating effects, such as killing wildlife and increasing the risk of cancer in both animals and humans.
What causes excess waste?
“The logistics industry creates waste through transport materials, warehouse activities, vehicle maintenance, packaging, and office waste.” The logistics aspect of shipping is remarkably inefficient, which leaves opportune room for fraud: “The state of Massachusetts, for instance, recently recovered $7.9 million through an investigation into claims that Shell Oil misused a fund meant for the cleanup of contaminated gas stations.”
Logistical mismanagement is rife in all areas of the shipping world, and Fr8 Network is highly aware of this. Freight brokerage is a field with high margins where lots of useful data is siloed away behind walls. It’s a very centralized business, which means it’s extremely opaque — many drivers and suppliers are left in the dark. Brokers often connect shippers with the cheapest carriers, which needless to say is not the most efficient method. The Environmental Defense Fund also mentions that 15 to 25 percent of all US trucks on the road at any given time are empty. For non-empty miles, trailers are 36 percent underutilized. Removing even half of this under-utilized capacity would both reduce freight truck emissions by 100 million tons (which is about 20 percent of all freight emissions in the US) and decrease diesel fuel expenditures by over $30 billion each year.
What can be done to reduce pollution?
The EPA also provides potential methods for recycling different wastes and preventing pollution. When it comes to unloading and cleaning tank trucks, for instance, it would be practical to “reclaim solvents in an onsite distillation unit for reuse or send for reclamation,” and then “install a closed washing and rinsing system to recycle wastewaters, reduce water usage, and limit volatile organic air emissions.” There are many potential solutions (keep your fingers crossed for solar-powered vehicles one day), but to help with the logistics aspect to complement the material, we at Fr8 Network have created a system to maximize the trucking industry’s efficiency.
All of those miles trucks drive partially or fully empty are unnecessary. We developed a blockchain-based platform, which we call Fr8 Board, which decentralizes freight data. Suppliers, carriers, and brokers can see all of the information they need in order to make well-informed decisions regarding shipments, including vehicle statuses, schedules, ratings (for both companies and drivers), locations, and more.
Our platform will not only keep costs lower (one of blockchain’s benefits is minimizing the need for intermediaries, so brokers’ duties will shift), but will optimize fossil fuel usage. We all like to get our products in a timely manner, but we also like to live on a green earth and breathe clean air.
