4 ms·

The Chinese ship plenty of glass to NA. The weight is of no consequence since freight is charged per volume (40' container, 20' container). Typically a 40 ft co

The Chinese ship plenty of glass to NA. The weight is of no consequence since freight is charged per volume (40' container, 20' container). Typically a 40 ft container from China to NY State is about $3600-$4200 depending on the Logistics Company and time of year. Many of the Condo's in Toronto, Canada (condo capital of the world) are faced with Chinese glass. Glass is typically compromised when it is not packed or stored correctly. It is actually quite durable and is shipped from all over the world. A good example is the glass Apple used for its new campus, it came from Germany. I think the problem here is "Just in Time" delivery to the Auto Manufacturers. It takes about 12 days on the water and another 5 on rail to reach the rust belt or east coast. So that is probably why they decided to start producing in the USA so they can meet tighter production and delivery schedules and take shipping lines/ports out of the equation.

Natsu 9y ago
From back when I was working in that industry, I was told we couldn't really compete on price with China. They were trying to get glass from China because it was cheaper than what we could make in our own float plants. We were trying to compete on quality, that is to say, delivering less broken or damaged glass. That said, you're right--I don't remember too much trouble shipping raw glass. It was just coated in Lucite and the first sheet is always a write-off. We had more trouble when people had packs fall when trying to load them into the gantry every so often, though broken sheets were quite a pain to deal with sometimes more from a safety perspective, when the crane can't get suction on it to drop it and it's too big to safely handle.