Inside the Little Plastic Castle

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In eight 50-minute episodes, the CONTAINERS podcast producer Alexis Madrigal explores how global transport changed from humans putting individual things in ships and airplanes to putting things into train-car size containers, which are loaded via huge cranes onto huge boats. Containerization is why cheaply-made goods have flooded the world. The series examines how this change, started almost by accident during the Vietnam war, has affected billions of people in small and large ways. The series is sponsored by Flexport, who are in the container business—and it is definitely not a puff piece.

I’m pleased that Madrigal has posted transcripts at medium.com/containers and you can listen from there or from CONTAINERS’ audio on Soundcloud

Containerization is why my supermarket stocks frozen, peeled and boiled Vietnamese soybeans, even though I live in Wisconsin, a soybean producing state. Alexis Madrigal (a writer for The Atlantic) asks what happens to the dock workers and the handful of sailors who move these huge container ships around the globe. He tells how Oakland residents fought back against the concentration of diesel fumes from the new container ports where thousands of trucks idle daily.

Episode 6 begins:

This is a story about heroes in West Oakland like Margaret Gordon. This is a story about people who stood up and said, “No, not on my watch.” This is not a story about the health department. And this is not a story even about the port. This is a story about people coming together to fight for justice. And they won. And they won big. And they won in a way that had influence on what’s happening in ports all over this country. And in fact ports all around the world. I think those are the true heroes, the Margaret Gordons … They drove this change and they deserve the credit.

The series digs in to the origins and beginnings of containerized shipping.

For a beautiful and informative demonstration of containerized shipping 2012, visit ShipMap.org. There’s an autoplay audio overview, and an animated interactive map showing all the container ships on the planet and what they’re carrying.