Los Angeles and Long Beach ports have long been the primary source of pollution on the US West Coast, which also happens to be the smoggiest region in the country. Since June of this year, the accumulation of diesel-powered container ships and a large number of cargo-moving trucks in the ports has exacerbated the situation. Residents living near these ports face the highest risk of cancer from the air pollution in that region, which is primarily caused by smoke-belching ships anchored at these ports. California has set a 2023 deadline for reducing smog and improving air quality, but the situation on the ground has deteriorated in recent years. Especially, with the ongoing congestion at the LA port.
While efficient ports are critical for the economic development of their surrounding areas, the associated ship traffic, cargo handling in the ports, and hinterland distribution can all hurt the environment as well as the economy.
When a vessel arrives at a port and is unable to berth, it must wait at the anchorage until a berth becomes available. This is a problem that only gets worse over time and Southern California ports have been facing congestion issues like never before. A huge crowd of container ships has been constrained to queue outside Los Angeles and Long Beach, causing the latest supply chain disruption in the United States.
The ships are stranded outside two of the busiest ports of the country, which together handle 40% of all containerized cargo entering the US.
The number of ships awaiting entry into the largest US gateway for trade with Asia reached a record high, increasing delays for businesses attempting to replenish inventories during one of the busiest times of the year for seaborne freight.
On September 12, Port of Los Angeles Director Gene Seroka warned that a “significant volume” of goods was “coming our way throughout this year and into 2022.”
Timeline of the number of vessels in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and related anchoring areas
Consequently, on September 18, a record 73 ships were trapped outside the port – nearly double the number as that of the previous month.
The current congestion — with both ports setting records regularly — exemplifies cargo surge since the pandemic. The backlog has increased pollution and poses a threat of supply shortages ahead of the holiday shopping season.
In January 2020, we announced on our blog that we support Steffen Krones, a German film producer, and his project team who reached out to FleetMon seeking a sponsoring partner. They planned to produce a documentary called “Flaschenpost aus Dresden”, covering the question:
Is it possible that trash produces in Germany moves all the way along German rivers ending up in the North Sea or even in the Arctic Ocean to pollute the coast of the Lofoten?
To get answers they built buoys equipped with GPS devices and tracked the buoys’ journey to understand and visualize the influence of human behavior on our world.
“Flaschenpost aus Dresden” is the latest documentary film project of Steffen Krones
2020 has passed quickly and we asked the project team for an update on their documentary project.
“We can’t wait to travel after those GPS drifters and finish the film production.”
Three vessel types were responsible for around three-quarters of worldwide CO2 emissions in 2012. There is little reason to doubt that the Big Three are still responsible for a similar share in 2020. FleetMon provides a global overview of CO2 emissions per vessel type.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from commercial shipping are increasingly grabbing the headlines. Like aviation, shipping had been excluded from climate negotiations because it is an international activity, while both the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement involved national pledges to reduce greenhouse gases. But as ships move around 80% of global trade in volume terms, there is a growing consensus about the need to tackle shipping’s CO2 emissions.
In October 2019 a German producer and environmental activist turned to us in need of support for a documentary project. Together with his team, he examines if trash of German rivers could contribute to coastal pollution of the Lofoten, a group of islands in the north of Norway. The idea is to build buoys equipped with GPS devices and track their journey to demonstrate the flow of German plastics.
FleetMon values curiosity and ingenuity! We support the project team by sponsoring the first batch of GPS devices for free.
The devices will be placed inside customized buoys. The buoys are made of sustainable or recycled material to start their journey in the major German river Elbe to simulate how German trash might move.
