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Last year, several refrigerated containers exploded due to contaminated refigerant. Workers were killed in Vietnam and Brazil.First it was trademark designer watches, clothing and Hollywood films burned onto DVDs, but now the massive trade in counterfeit goods has moved onto the shipping industry itself, with a profusion of fake gases used in servicing reefer containers, with potentially lethal consequences.
The issue first came to light early last year, when three containers exploded in the Vietnamese deepsea export container terminals at the mouth of the Mekong River, followed by a later explosion in Brazil, resulting in the fatalities of three workers.
The incidents also caused considerable problems in the perishable supply chain. The US west coast dockers union, the ILWU, refused to handle any reefer container that had been serviced in Vietnam – a ban which continues today – while the South African government introduced a similar measure, which Andy Connell, Dole South Africa’s logistics manager, said created “equipment issues”.
Mark Bennett, international moderator for the Container Operators Association, which launched an investigation into the...