Bananas for Britain
The Bremerhaven container terminal in Germany has made
it into the Guinness Book of Records. And for good reason:
the so called “Stromkaje”, the quay at which container ships
up to 400 metres long tie up for loading and unloading, is
the longest of its kind in the world, extending almost 5,000
metres. The total working and storage area of this impressive
harbour installation is around 3 million m². Bremerhaven is
about 30 nautical miles from the North Sea, approximately
two and a half hours by ship.
No matter whether the cargo is auto parts or computers,
mobile phones, clothes or food – everything which will fit into
a container is shipped via major ports such as Bremerhaven
to countries all over the world. In 2009, Bremerhaven, the
port on the Weser estuary, was the final destination for over
4,000 container ships. Close to the container terminal are the
berths for the refrigerator ships used to transport bananas.
These fruits travel about 10,000 kilometres in 22 days on the
high seas before they reach consumers in Europe via
Bremerhaven.
trends in automation
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