Shipping lines spend a considerable amount of money every year moving empty boxes around the world.
When shipping lines move container loads of goods, they often have to bring back the empty boxes, which is very expensive. This means it is necessary to bring empty containers from the USA back to Asia, and the recent economic difficulties in Asia have only served to exacerbate this problem. The suggested solution is to increase communication between shipping lines and identify opportunities for container interchange. For example, if one shipping line has a cargo from Rotterdam to Cape Town and another shipping line has a cargo from Cape Town to Rotterdam, the two companies can use the same boxes and cut their costs considerably. For example, every shipping line has more cargo moving from Asia to the USA than in the opposite direction.