Thousands of shipping containers have been lost at sea. What happens when they burst open?

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Most of the world’s raw materials and everyday goods that are moved over long distances—from T-shirts to televisions, cellphones to hospital beds—are packed in large metal boxes the size of tractor-trailers and stacked on ships. A trade group says some 250 million containers cross the oceans every year—but not everything arrives as planned. More than 20,000 shipping containers have tumbled overboard in the last decade and a half. Their varied contents have washed onto shorelines, poisoned fisheries, and animal habitats, and added to swirling ocean trash vortexes. Most containers eventually sink to the seafloor and are never retrieved. Scientists and environmental advocates say more should be done to track losses and prevent container spills. “Just because it may seem 'out of sight, out of mind,’ doesn’t mean there aren’t vast environmental consequences,” said marine biologist Andrew DeVogelaere of California’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The long-term impact of adding on average more than a thousand containers each year to the world’s oceans—by the most conservative estimates—remains unknown. “The first thing that happens is they land and crush everything underneath them,” said DeVogelaere, who studied the sunken container. By changing the flow of water and sediment, the container completely changes the micro-ecosystem around it—impacting seafloor species that scientists are still discovering. Labels showed the container came from the Med Taipei, which had lost two dozen boxes in rough seas on a journey between San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 2006, the ship owners and operators reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to pay $3.25 million for estimated damages to the marine environment. It’s not just environmentalists who worry. Some lost containers float for days before sinking—endangering boats of all sizes, from commercial vessels to recreational sailboats. The sporting body World Sailing has reported at least eight instances in which crews had to abandon boats because of collisions with what were believed to be containers. In 2016, sailor Thomas Ruyant was 42 days into a race around the world when his sailboat’s hull split from a sudden crash with what appeared to be a floating container. This article was provided by The Associated Press.