Marine vessels like fishing boats, submarines, and even cruise ships have the possibility to run into a sinking shipping container. The shipping containers don’t actually sink, but the top of the shipping container floats just above the water. So, the corners of the shipping container stick outward and can dig into ships, causing more damage. This means that marine vessels cannot see the shipping containers, and it’s even harder to see it at night.

Whenever a shipping container falls into the ocean, it could maybe fall onto unaware marine life like turtles or other animals. Most of them do get out fo the way in time, but that doesn’t mean all of them. And when it reaches the floor of the ocean, it could crush things like coral reefs or other ecosystems. It could even crush these ecosystems on its way down.

On the shipping containers way down into the ocean, the insides of the ship can cause yet another problem. The objects inside the shipping container could burst out of it, and they could pollute the surrounding environment. An incident that happened in the 1990’s was a shipping container filled with rubber ducks busted open, and they still wash up today. And a situation that could happen that is even worse, there could be microplastics in the objects and can pollute the ocean water with plastics.