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Cardboard and Cardboard Box Information
- What is cardboard ?
- How is cardboard made ?
- What type of cardboard is used for making boxes?
- What types of box are there?
- What manufacturing limitations are there to making boxes?
What is cardboard?
Corrugated cardboard is a reusable material made from a renewable resource.
It is environment friendly, being recyclable and ultimately biodegradable. Over 70% of the cardboard produced each year in the uk is made from recycled fibers. Corrugated board is not made from paper derived from tropical forest hardwoods as they are unsuitable for the process. Instead the paper industry uses fast growing softwoods that are being replanted faster than they are being used.
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How is cardboard made ?
Single wall corrugated cardboard is made from three distinct parts a flat paper “outer liner”, a corrugated paper “fluting” and a flat paper "inner liner".
Double wall corrugated cardboard is made from five distinct parts. The same components as single wall board are used but double wall has an additional "inner liner" and an additional "fluting" for extra strength applications.
Rolls of the required paper are fed into a "corrugator" machine and during the cardboard manufacturing process the paper components are bonded together with a water based glue which results in a strong sandwich type construction which gives corrugated cardboard its excellent cushioning characteristics, rigidity and structural strength.
Corrugated board used for packaging comes in a large number of "board grades" which specifies the type, weight and thickness of the "liners" and "fluting" used. Some grades can also have special coatings applied during the manufacturing process which facilitates improved printing quality on boxes requiring graphics images etc.
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What type of cardboard is used for making boxes ?
Boxes are manufactured in a wide range of board grades which includes the coarse ‘C’ flute, fine ‘B’ and extra fine ‘E’ flutes. The ‘B’ flute is the most widely used for most packaging boxes. It is very robust (ie. difficult to crush) and has good compression strength and printing characteristics. The ‘C’ flute (slightly wider than 'B') offers a greater compression strength but provides less crush resistance. Double wall boxes are usually manufactured in "BC" flute or "EB" flute which (as their names suggest) are boards made by combining two flutes into a double wall sandwich.
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What types of box are there?
Boxes are used for packing a wide range of products and therefore there are a wide range of standard box designs known as "fefco styles". An example of such a style is an 0201 style box which is the most commonly used box for the shipment of products. This type of box is known as a conventional box and it can be produced on conventional rotary box making machines.
If a standard style box design is not suitable for a particular application a new design may have to be created. These designs are known as "die-cuts" and are produced on different machinery which stamps out the box and which needs a specially made cutter for every job. This cutter is known as a "die-cut forme".
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What manufacturing limitations are there to making cardboard boxes?
Although it is possible to make cardboard boxes from stock sheets of cardboard this is usually very wastefull in both materials and in the box manufacturing process and consequently cardboard usually has to be manufactured specifically for every job.
It is for this reason that all cardboard box manufacturers have to specify a minimum order quantity that is calculated from the square metres of cardboard required to make a particular box and on the board grade selected.
The other limitations on manufacturing a specific cardboard box is whether the "style" of box, its size and any printing requirements is within the manufacturing limitations of the box makers machinery.
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