Has the Port of Tauranga become a convenient dumping ground for surplus shipping containers?

In recent years the number of empty containers stockpiled in the port environs has increased enormously.

The stacks – up to seven containers high – appear to be semi-permanent and are becoming a major eyesore. Nor are they restricted to the port itself. Container mountains are now steadily encroaching across Sulphur Point well outside the port boundaries and similarly moving ever further inland north of Totara Street at Mount Maunganui.

Plainly New Zealand is importing far more containerised goods than it exports, a situation unlikely to change anytime soon unless it becomes economic to containerise logs. One can understand shipping companies make little profit shifting empty containers. But there
are now grounds to suspect companies are taking advantage of space at our port.

One must hope the plans exist to control the container influx and – better yet – see the stock piles reduced.

D Blanshard, Welcome Bay