There are a number of different thicknesses of corrugated fiberboard made. The most common are designated by the fluting letters 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', and 'F'. The most common, used in most typical shipping boxes, is 'A' flute, which is 3/16" (4.8mm) thick.
Cardboard, also referred to as corrugated cardboard, is a recyclable material that is recycled by small and large scale businesses to save money on waste disposal costs. Cardboard recycling is the reprocessing and reuse of thick sheets or stiff multilayered papers that have been used, discarded or regarded as waste.
When considering the weight of cardboard vs corrugated fiberboard, it's important to keep the overall strength-to-weight ratio in mind. While cardboard is a lighter material in general, corrugated is going to be much more rugged at the same weight.
A standard panel of corrugated cardboard can hold 32 lbs. The burst test sees how much pressure (pounds per square inch) is needed to bust a hole in a panel. A typical piece of corrugated cardboard can hold 200 lbs.
Fast-growing pine trees provide the primary raw material used to make corrugated cardboard. The largest packaging companies own thousands of acres of land where trees are matured, harvested, and replaced with seedlings.
Today, cardboard is treated with retardant chemicals: termite retardant, moisture retardant, flame retardant, roach retardant, food spoilage retardant, water retardant, heat retardant, fire retardant and ant and other insect retardant.
Marking and coding on corrugated boxes use black piezo inkjet inks, which are traditionally oil-based pigment inks and now an eco-friendly bio-based mineral-oil-free ink. For marking and coding with thermal inkjet systems (TIJ), many printers employ water-based pigment or dye-based inks.
The available paper grades for outer and inner liners when manufacturing cardboard are as follows:
- KRAFT (K): Virgin Kraft paper.
- TEST 2 (T2): Partly recycled liner paper.
- TEST 3 (T): Fully recycled liner.
- CHIP (C): Waste based liners.
- FULLY BLEACHED WHITE (BW): Fully bleached Kraft liner.
You know already that cardboard boxes are easily prone to water and moisture. Therefore, you should make them properly waterproof to keep your elements safe. You'll get lots of benefits from waterproofing the cardboard boxes. Let's see some of the essential benefits of waterproofing them.
Cardboard, therefore, is biodegradable and recyclable, but it's not totally environmentally friendly. However, compared to one-use plastics, it may be the lesser of two evils if we want to cut down on our waste.
As regards to its insulation properties, cardboard is actually a great insulator as it has poor thermal conductivity. The definition of conductivity is actually the property of a material to transmit energy. The porous composition of cardboard is the reason that makes it an excellent sound-proof material.
When recycled, cardboard is used to make chipboard like cereal boxes, paperboard, paper towels, tissues and printing or writing paper. It's also made into more corrugated cardboard.
