When you’re driving down the highway and see huge trucks making their way through the traffic, you may wonder what’s inside those huge rectangular or tube-shaped containers. Here’s a look at some of the most common items you may see trucking past you on the interstate.
Groceries
From fruits and vegetables to paper products and canned beverages, most of what you pick up at the supermarket was hauled there by truck. Perishables, of course, will have to ride in a refrigerated conveyance. You may notice specific brand names painted on the sides of those trucks or see a semi unloading goodies at your store’s loading dock.
Waste Fluids
Some cargo is a less appetizing. Waste fluid hauling by truck can involve industrial waste water, contaminated materials from drilling sites, the products of restaurant grease traps, liquid leached from landfills, and the contents of septic systems or portable restrooms. Some liquid waste may be flammable or otherwise hazardous. All of it should be safely encapsulated in a container made to hold it all in and transport it without leakage or incident.
Furniture and Equipment
Many times, a large truck will be full of things needed by businesses—not to sell, but to get work done. This may include desks, chairs, conference tables, cubicle pieces, and file cabinets for an office; shelving, display racks, cash registers, and signage for a store; and manufacturing machinery and equipment for factories. All of those items need to be made somewhere and brought somewhere else, and that trip may take them right down the same lanes you’re driving in.
Mail-Order Shipments
Maybe the contents of that big truck are on their way to you! Online shopping has made the shipping of items from all over to all over a regular occurrence, and while some items may make part of their trip by plane, others travel their entire route on highways and byways—and every one will come to your door in a truck, van, or car. You may notice the brown trucks of UPS, white trucks of FedEx, or yellow trucks of DHL and know they’re carrying items for delivery, but even unmarked trucks might be bearing your web order on its way.
As you pass by those huge tractor-trailers or smaller trucks on the road or trail along behind one, think of what it might be bringing to a store or business or home near you—or what it may be taking away—and be grateful for the work done by the drivers to transport those items.