Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Auto Shipping Industry - Too Hazardous to Exist?

By Tom Kearns


The environment is very much in the forefront of the news these days. Terms such as recycling, ecological preservation and non-fossil fuels for energy needs are a major part of the eco-activists vocabulary and are familiar to most people.

Of real concern is the fact of global warming and the contribution that the auto shipping industry is making toward it. There are certainly environmental accidents waiting to happen within the industry, but auto shipping will continue and is sure to even increase its business due to the popularity of the service. This does not give the auto shippers the license to pollute and the industry understands that it must face the responsibility of lessening the damage it is doing to the environment.

The major detrimental environmental impacts are those of ground waste and ecological destruction. The automobile industry is certainly guilty of this also, yet no one is trading in their car for walking shoes. Our autos and our penchant for relocating our bases of operation are two things that are too convenient, too productive and too intertwined with our society to give up. Automobile manufacturing is also labor and material intensive, distracting environmental concerns from other hazards that may be just as critical.

The damage done to the environment by automobiles and the shipping of them is not a trivial concern. At the same time there is constant global demand for them. What's needed is to find a balance between efficient business practices and environmental issues to give people what they want without causing harm to our planet's natural resources. The major auto shippers have embraced this idea by creating better containers, robust computerized scheduling and advanced inventory management systems to help alleviate the negative impact their industry has on the environment.

The auto industry has introduced such eco-friendly innovations as hybrid and electric cars, beginning with vehicles such as Toyota's Prius, and spreading to all the car manufacturing companies so they won't be left out when this new technology becomes the norm. Auto shippers must get on the environmental bandwagon as well and can take advantage of some of automobile manufacturers' technological advancements toward a greener planet.

We the people of the planet place untold pressures on the environment in our need for convenience, practicality and luxury. We have also been made painfully aware of how much we are damaging our world by refusing to delete the automobile from our daily lives.

Possibly by working together to save the environment we will stop the disastrous practices that are so commonplace today. Businesses also need to get together with environmental engineers to formulate new technologies and ways of doing business that will turn the destructive trend to the environment around and keep the planet preserved for our descendants and maybe even give them a better, safer, greener place to live.




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