Containers for all sorts of things are in demand all over the world. Hell, there are even entire chains of stores devoted to selling nothing but containers.

<rant>
The problem is that they're all over the effing shop when it comes to sizing.

Henceforth there is to be one standard for sizing, so it works like this:

A standard starting point (say, 1 litre) container will occupy exactly the same shelf space as 4 x 1/4 litre containers or 2 x 1/2 litre containers (Heights may be varied, to allow for the space occupied by walls.)

The subsidiary sizing above 1 litre sees 2 x 1 litre containers fit into a 2 litre container or 4 x 1 litre containers fit into a 4 litre container; 2 x 4 into an 8 litre, 5 x 2 into a 10 and so on, up to a 1000 litre container, which will be stackable in road, rail and sea shipping containers.

If you can make this work with non-metric measurements then we'll go with that.

All other sizes are to be abolished immediately and their manufacturers are to be executed, en masse, if they deviate from the new standard.

</rant>
-- UnaBubba, May 05 2012

Similar idea container_20design_20law
[hippo, May 05 2012]

Twenty-foot equivalent unit http://en.wikipedia...oot_equivalent_unit
AKA intermodal containers or conex boxes [Alterother, May 05 2012]

I'm much more modest in my request to just make the effing lids interchangeable. Hunting for the tupperware lid to fit the container in hand is my least favourite game in the world.
-- AusCan531, May 05 2012


What Aus said.
-- blissmiss, May 05 2012


// All other sizes are to be abolished immediately and their manufacturers are to be executed, en masse, if they deviate from the new standard //

Now you're talking…

Presumaby firey swords, and phrases like "spare not even the children, lest the evil persist" will be involved.

[+]
-- 8th of 7, May 05 2012


This actually makes a bit of sense from the shipping point of view--a number of different-sized but compatible and interlocking containers could be sent from all over to central hubs, locked together Tetris-style into TEUs <link>, shipped to other hubs and redistributed, eliminating the need for secondary distribution centers and cutting down on warehousing cost/time.

Element-resistant reusable containers that are brought back to the store via a deposit incentive could bring the products directly to the end-users, further eliminating the need for unpacking/repackaging. The displaced workers from secondary distribution points and repackaging centers are put to work building and handling the MTEUCCs (Modular Twenty-foot Equivalent Component Containers), preventing jobloss while still streamlining the entire consumer product distribution system.
-- Alterother, May 05 2012


I agree with your idea, [hippo]. In fact, I want to see something like it extended and enhanced to ALL containers, so that the plastic will live with the glass, the cardboard will lie down with the steel, the wood and the iron and the aluminium together; and a little child will understand them.
-- UnaBubba, May 05 2012


Although it's a rant / let's all idea, it's a good one! Possibly some colour coding can go along with the standarization of sizes. [1 standard croissant]
-- xandram, May 07 2012


I can only bun this as long as I can be sure that the traditional Rentishams packaging will be the template - change would be unthinkable.

Our smallest pack is a single-use travel tube, which comes in a 3/8" x 31/80" x 4 17/54" box. Next up is the "handyman" pack size (a tub, applicator and silk polisher), which is 2 3/7" x 2 5/17" x 3 4/9".

Then you're into the Domestic, Estate and Empire household packs, then the military packs (less in demand these days, what with the decreasing use of gliders in military operations). And of course most of these are sold wholesale in multi-pack containers.

We did try changing some of the pack sizes back in the 1970's, what with decimalisation, but the response of the public was, to say the least, unfavourable. (Actually, that reminds me - we really ought to try printing the new decimal prices alongside the L.S.D. price at some point.)

However, our accounts department have developed a theorem which says that a prime number of each of the four smaller packs can be fitted together to make a block which is only 7/19ths of a millimetre smaller than a perfect cubic yard, if that helps.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 07 2012


Doesn't Rentisham's control their own international shipping fleet? That should help them around the TEU incompatibility, certainly. If not, I'm sure Maersk-Sealand could be convinced to adopt an REU standard.
-- Alterother, May 07 2012


We send relatively little Rentisham's overseas but, yes, that which we do ship is shipped on Rentisham's vessels, the Lanconian and the St. Hubert.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 07 2012



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