AB Supplies | Professional Print & Packaging Solutions

  Companies that ship products almost certainly have the need to purchase and use corrugated boxes. Corrugated boxes are made from kraft paper in different paper weights to give strength to a carton. In a typical single-wall box there are 3 papers. An inside liner, a medium(fluted), and an outside liner make up the construction of corrugated.

Paper comes from trees. As trees are not a sustainable resource, recycling paper has become big business. But more than business demands, is the environmental demand. The reclaiming of paper in the waste stream has become so efficient that with modern technology corrugated manufacturers make shipping boxes from paper that is 100% post consumer fibre.Corrugated and Paper

Companies that are trying to be eco-friendly, are always looking for ways to be more "green". Many companies know how to be more "green", but the cost is prohibitive or the end result is a diminished product or process and therefore nothing changes. Luckily for companies that use corrugated products there is a solution that not only returns waste back into the usable stream of packaging, but does it at no increase cost and no loss in performance in most cases.

Corrugated box users are concerned that recycled paper liners in corrugated sheets will not have the same strength as their 100% virgin corrugated sheet counterparts. This concern has been identified by using an Edge Crush Test (ECT, primarily started for the recycled paper manufacturers) verses a Mullin (puncture)test. Because recycled paper fibres are shorter than virgin paper fibre, puncture has been a true concern with corrugated sheets made with recycled paper in the past.Today corrugators and paper mills are making corrugated sheets and recycled corrugated boxes that have tested at the same strength as those of the virgin fibre variety, and this is not limited to 200# board. Paper board combinations are available to create board tests from 150# to 350# board strengths. Some of the only downfalls are that they cannot make a bleached (white) paper liner and with high moisture or humidity the paper does degrade faster than virgin paper.