German environmental organizations and politicians are calling for shipping containers on cargo vessels to be fitted with tracking devices, in response to an accident that caused a huge vessel to spill around 270 containers in the North Sea earlier this week.

"The problem is locating the containers," said Olaf Lies, environment minister for the state of Lower Saxony, off whose coast the accident happened. Speaking with the local ffn radio station, he demanded an investigation. "We urgently need to do something," he said.

That sentiment was echoed by Manfred Santen, a Greenpeace expert for chemical pollutants, who told broadcaster NDR that it was "no problem technically" to install trackers. Lies also suggested that containers carrying hazardous materials should no longer be stored near the edges or tops of cargo vessels.

The Panamanian-flagged MSC Zoe lost its 270 containers during a storm in the North Sea on Tuesday night, as it was travelling from Antwerp in Belgium to Bremerhaven on the German coast.

Read more: How to protect the high seas environment?

Dutch islanders take to the beach as container cargo washes ashore Unusual beach litter Dozens of containers appeared near the islands of Frisian islands of Terschelling, Vlieland, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog. Among the goods washed up on the shore were flat-screen televisions, brought ashore with the polystyrene material they had been packed in. Such material is considered to be flotsam, and inhabitants of the islands have a centuries-old tradition of collecting it.

Dutch islanders take to the beach as container cargo washes ashore Getting a clear picture Here, one man carries away a flat-screen television, still tightly wrapped in its packaging. Meanwhile, others inspect a cargo container that was washed up on a beach. Some 270 containers were lost from the container ship MSC Zoe, during "heavy weather."

Dutch islanders take to the beach as container cargo washes ashore Floating footwear It's not unusual to see flip-flop shoes like this on the beach, but they don't usually arrive in pairs as flotsam. Some shoes — and there were a lot of shoes — were wrapped in bags containing silica gel, one of several pollution worries.

Dutch islanders take to the beach as container cargo washes ashore Helping hands Among the many items to be brought ashore on the waves were to cars, freezers, Ikea furniture, and computer chips. Volunteers pitched in with efforts to clean the beach.

Dutch islanders take to the beach as container cargo washes ashore Hazardous cargo? This photograph from the Dutch Coastguard shows three of the containers that fell from MSC Zoe floating out at sea. Authorities have warned that some containers are carrying hazardous chemicals such as organic peroxide, and have urged people not to touch the unopened freight boxes. Three containers loaded with chemicals are still missing.

Dutch islanders take to the beach as container cargo washes ashore Washed away The Panamanian-flagged MSC Zoe is one one the biggest container ships in the world. Containers appeared to have simply been washed away in the rough weather. German authorities have taken the lead investigating the causes of the accident, which occurred in German waters near the island of Borkum. The bulk of the lost cargo was carried southwest, into waters belonging to the Netherlands. Author: Richard Connor



Dangerous chemicals

At least three of the lost containers are thought to contain dangerous chemicals, and a 25-kilo (55-pound) bag of highly flammable organic peroxide powder has already been recovered from the island of Schiermonnikoog off the Dutch north coast, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Even before Tuesday's accident, Germany's environmentalist Green party had demanded that such substances be banned from the high seas. "Dangerous chemicals have no business on the world's oceans," Green party spokesman Oliver Krischer told DW in an email. "Especially not in the top row of cargo ships, where they can quickly go overboard.

"Limitations, especially for the North Sea and for European ports, should be introduced as soon as possible," he added. "The risk of larger accidents is intolerable."

Dutch authorities have reported that around 20 of the containers have washed up on the shores of the country's North Sea islands, with their contents scattered across the beaches. Local volunteers had collected some 130 tons of goods scattered along 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) of the coast of the island of Ameland alone.

Read more: Low-emissions ocean ships: Who should pay for shipping's green transition?

Conflicting safety concerns

But Uwe Schmidt, a Bundestag member with the center-left Social Democrats and an expert on cargo shipping, questioned the wisdom of the measures demanded by the Green party and Olaf Lies, his party colleague.

Schmidt, who is originally from Bremerhaven, told the Deutschlandfunk radio station that containers with hazardous contents had to be packed on the outside of ships, making them easily accessible in case of fire. He also wondered about the practicality of tracking transponders, given that modern recovery technology, which is equipped with sonar, is already very effective.

Schmidt added that the new generation of supersized ocean freighters, of which the MSC Zoe was an example, had made securing the containers on board much more difficult. "Stacking eight containers on top of each on deck was completely impossible until 10 years ago," Schmidt said. "Of course, that makes the ships significantly more complicated than before, when it comes to stability, and when it comes to securing the load."

He also pointed out that safety on international cargo shipping was practically "self-regulated" through the International Maritime Organization. "I do think that in the future that we will [need] more specialized regulations for individual ship types," he said.

At Friday's regular government press conference in Berlin, Environment Ministry spokesperson Nikolai Fichtner would only say it was "too early" to draw any "political consequences" from the incident.