The Science Of Cardboard
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- Опубликовано: 2 мар 2022
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In 2020, the United States hit a record high in its yearly use of one the most ubiquitous manufactured materials on earth, cardboard. As of 2020, just under 97% of all expended corrugated packaging is recovered for recycling, making this inexpensive, durable, material an extraordinary recycling success story.
THE RISE OF PAPER PACKAGING
This processed pulp is then used to produce paper. Paper making machines use a moving woven mesh to create a continuous paper web that aligns the fibers held in the pulp, producing a continuously moving wet mat of fiber. The invention of several paper-based packaging forms and processes stemmed from this boom, with the corrugated fiberboard shipping container quickly becoming the most dominant.
INVENTION OF CORRUGATION
The first known widespread use of corrugated paper was in the 1850s with an English patent being issued in 1856 to Edward Charles Healey and Edward Ellis Allen. Three years later, Oliver Long would patent an improvement on Jone’s design with the addition of an adhered single paper facing to prevent the unfolding of the corrugation, forming the basis for modern corrugated fiberboard.
American Robert Gair, a Brooklyn printer and paper-bag maker, had discovered that by cutting and creasing cardboard in one operation he could make prefabricated cartons.
In a partnership with the Thompson and Norris company, the concept would be applied to double-faced corrugated stock, giving rise to the production of the first corrugated fiberboard boxes. In 1903, the first use of corrugated fiberboard boxes for rail transport occurred when the Kellog brothers secured an exception to the wooden box requirement by railroads of the Central Freight Association.
HOW ITS MADE
Rolls of paper stock are first mounted onto unwinding stands and are pulled into the machine at the feeding side of the corrugator, also known as the "wet end". The paper medium is heated to around 176-193 degrees C , so it can be formed into a fluted pattern at the corrugating rolls. The corrugating rolls are gear-like cylinders that are designed to shape the paper medium into a fluted structure as it moves through them. As the newly formed fluted paper leaves these rolls, an adhesive is applied to the flute tips and the first liner is roller pressed on.
The paper stock that forms this liner is often pre-treated with steam and heat before this binding process. The adhesives used in modern corrugated fiberboard are typically water-based, food-grade, corn starches combined with additives. A second liner is applied by adding adhesive to the fluted tips on the other side of the paper medium. After curing, the sheets may be coated with molten wax to create a water-resistant barrier if the packaging is expected to be exposed to excessive amounts of moisture, such as with produce or frozen food products.
PAPER SOURCE
While the first packaging papers relied on the chemical based Kraft pulping process, modern production relies primarily on mechanical pulping, due to its lower cost and higher yield. When a production run of corrugated fiberboard is done, a target set of specifications based on customer requirements, determine both the quality control and physical properties of the fiberboard.
BOXES
Corrugated sheets are run through a splitter-scoring machine that scores and trims the corrugated stock into sheets known as box blanks. Within the flexographic machine, the final packaging product is created. Flexographic machines employ both printing dies and rotary die-cutters on a flexible sheet that are fitted to large rollers. Additionally, a machine known as a curtain coater is also utilized to apply a coat of wax for moisture-resistant packaging.
RECYCLING
The slurry is sent through an industrial magnet to remove metal contaminants. Chemicals are also applied to decolorize the mixture of inks within the slurry. Because the paper produced by purely recycled material will have a dull finish and poor wear characteristics, virgin pulp is typically blended into the slurry to improve its quality. This blended pulp is then directly used to produce new paper.
Recycling paper based packaging is so effective that only 75% of the energy used to produce virgin paper packaging is needed to make new cardboard from recycled stock. Aside from diverting waste material from landfills, it requires both 50% less electricity and 90% less water to produce.
KEY FOOTAGE
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Corrugated Boxes: How It’s Made Step By Step Process | Georgia-Pacific
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impressive work
A great video... but it wasn’t ‘science’ it was ‘The engineering of cardboard’
Repent to Jesus Christ
“In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
Psalms 4:8 NIV
@@getonthecrossanddontlookba5004 nice quote
The music is distracting. No music necessary!
I am a packaging engineer, I have taken one too many courses on paper. This was really well done. You clearly did your homework as you got niche industry terms right something thats rare on this platform
Never knew packaging engineering was a thing. Were you a mechanical engineering major or chemistry major?
@@pro-nav I have a Bachelors in Packaging Science
@@TheJttv do you ever feel boxed in by your choice of degree?
@@KX36 punny, but if you are being serious tho. No, the job market for packaging engineers is very stable with every company which makes physical products having one or contracting one. I have friends in just about every industry you could think of. The biggest issue is that you often have to move for new jobs as you might not find another opening in the same city when you are looking
@@TheJttv I'm curious why it takes six years of school to be a packaging engineer. I get it's complicated with different products and variables but it can't really be that hard. I look packages and notice the innovations and different materials but they all just seem like things I could have come up with.
Cats quickly realized the importance of cardboard boxes.
Mine prefer unwaxed C fluting. R fluting too thin, they claim.😼
And paper bags
Yep
@@smudgey1kenobey Unless it's single-faced
Brown paper products in bag or box form. They see something we don't
Being a garbage man, I found this very interesting learning about the reusability of cardboard. I see literal TONS of it thrown away DAILY. I would, and I'm sure many others would love to see a comprehensive break down of waste management, from consumer to landfill and recycling, the past and what's possible in the future. Information about glass, plastics, scrap metals, and of course paper.
The fact that I've never really thought about how boxes are made is testament to the engineering that has gone into them.
Repent to Jesus Christ
“In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
Psalms 4:8 NIV
J
@@getonthecrossanddontlookba5004 you lost buddy?
The best things in a society are the things that are silently working to keep it moving.
A lot goes into your mom's box
its amazing how much of humanity has been carried solely by white men, god bless them.
As someone who's worked at a landfill a bit, styrofoam is the absolute worst. At least the kind that's a bunch of balls stuck together - other foams are less difficult to clean and don't end up spreading across fields or outside of receptacles when they start to break and dry out. Cardboard is basically nuclear or solar by comparison lol.
Yes I was thinking exactly of this when watching the video. Styrofoam is the boogeyman of packaging, the cancer of landfills. It's really disgusting when I see it in nature, it gets everywhere, and I just want to give up when I see it.
I HATE Styrofoam packaging. It's big, can't be easily compressed, it's messy, can't easily recycle it anywhere, can quickly fill a trash bag... it just sucks. Formed paperboard packaging is so much nicer, can be recycled, flattened, and can even be burned in a campfire.
I work in a mill that takes junk and makes the paper out of it for these boxes and paper bags, and styrofoam is a nightmare to deal with in this regard too
solar energy is very damaging to the environment (sulphur hexafluoride) and it is made with cobalt often mined by child slaves. Then I have not even mentioned how you can't recycle those panels.
Styrofoam packaging should be banned, it would really make a huge difference.
But nooo, let's just ban plastic straws, that'll save the planet.
Having made paper before, I’m so glad that other people have figured out how to do it much quicker and easier.
There's nothing easy about paper mills
Well the most important part is scale
@@mitchellsteindler "Easy" vs "easier", I made paper by hand as a kid, so I hope they aren't doing that in the mills.
@@ilikaplayhopscotch its not easier. It's more productive, but it's much much harder.
I remember making crude paper in my kitchen. I also made glue from sugar. It fun to know the basics, but not worth for practical uses because of the scale you are doing it, or lack thereof.
It is so nice to watch an actual environmental/manufacturing success story for a change. I've begun to think there wasn't any left when every other one has typically been tinged with phrases like "it's hoped that in the future" or "if changes are made soon enough", etc.
i remember when i used to see content like this on PBS when I was little. But now it's presented, paced, and delivered to adult tastes. I love this.
What an amazing material. In the age of plastic I'm really glad to see that the alternatives are actually significantly better. I hope we can use more paper products in the future with as good or better recycling rates!
I mean, paper-based cardboard is not actually better than modern foam packaging in many ways but having this alternative so we can use it when it is sufficient rather than unrecyclable foam packaging is definitely a good thing
I took care of a bunch of box recycling at my home today. I broke the boxes down (but of course they still had plastic tape on them.) Inside of a few were Styrofoam inserts for shipping. I looked up proper ways to dispose of Styrofoam and basically got throw it out, or take it to a specialty recycling place. Sorry, I had a busy day and wasn't going to drive 20 miles to recycle it, so I threw it out with a grimace on my face because I hated that. Also were lots of air filled cushion bags. Some were made of #2 material same as shopping bags (which curbside should take because they take that in other forms) but they suggest dropping it off at a grocery store. I was going food shopping anyway, so why not? Other ones were #4 which I believe won't mix, so again, I had to put it in the landfill.
I hope manufacturers will get better at using recyclable materials. Some have, others not. It irks me, but I'm a strong believer in cardboard boxes. They work, recycle well and well, they work lol.
@@kenmore01 yeah Styrofoam is nonrecyclable mainly because of it's foaming properties. The current mainstream recycling does mechanical recycling where it chops up the plastic to make it smaller and easier to melt and process. Cutting up foam just gives foam and so would need to cut up the foam significantly to process it. By that point the polystyrene foam would be useless in material properties so that's why they need to be taken to a specialized recycling plant. Keep in mind that recycling paper also has the same pitfalls as plastic where material properties degrade as it gets recycled more and more. However, when it reaches the end of its lifespan, it is still (theoretically) biodegradable. To make the recycling of paper or plastics better, chemical recycling plants that can preserve the material properties need to be developed. Sadly, it is still in research phase but many people are working hard to come up with an economical chemical recycling solution and know how they work
@@earthpcCHClS Thanks for your reply. I'm getting the issues with polystyrene and I wish companies would give it the evil cross sign and stop immediately! It's not recycle friendly and doesn't break down well at all. Cardboard is and breaks down very well thank you.
Some of the stuff I bought had pulp formed packing like egg cartons but thicker. I know they break down well also. They should use them. They should stop with the plastics. We hate them, the Earth hates them and we will judge whether we want to buy things based upon the packaging. FYI, Amazon basics used the egg carton and cardboard packaging which is environmentally friendly and recyclable. Kudos. No tape, just spots of glue.
Hopefully things will improve. They have been, we just need some companies to catch up.
@@kenmore01 Styrofoam can be eaten by "worms" (beetle larvae) which digest it thanks to their internal bacteria, apparently with no microplastic accumulation.
ruclips.net/video/TS9PWzkUG2s/видео.html&ab_channel=TheThoughtEmporium
The really exciting thing for me in the last few years has been the replacement of custom shaped polystyrene padding material inside the boxes with press pulp made from other paper. You take something out of the package and it arrives unbroken, and then the box and the packaging material and everything else can all go in the same recycling bin, instead of you having to find an entirely separate facility that actually takes packaging foam. I'm lucky enough to live in a small town in Michigan that has a foam products company I can take my foam recycling to, but I know that's not really an option for most consumers. It really is a pretty brilliant step forward for how we handle our packaging.
I even saw once a padding made just out of cardboard, someone took a cardboard box (tape was still attached, there were box symbols etc.), cut it in a very smart way and put it in as a padding. So it's like double recycling, first you use as a box, then as padding, then you recycle in those machines into new cardboard...
But also, in my country recycling is encouraged, if you recycle, your trash bill is 50% smaller. Everything (except for some dangerous things) will be taken from your house, you just need to put trash in correct bin or bag. There are multiple categories, "bio" (kitchen waste, mostly plant-based, no meat or bones), "paper" (incl. cardboard), "metal and plastic" (incl. multilayered packages like for milk, I think storyfoam would go there too), "glass" and "mix" (everything that doesn't fit other category). But I remember years ago when my mum would have to drive somewhere to give away paper to recycle.
Working at the largest Kraft paper mill in the Americas and having worked for a large liquid product packaging company, I can say that the papermaking process is overwhelming complex but incredible and that the amount of cardboard boxes used daily is absurd.
This video perfectly shows the process from the manufacture of paper to the use of cardboard for packaging.
What are the standard sizes of the flat corrugated sheets that are cut into boxes in other factory's?
I have worked at this factory for nearly 10yrs now and just today did i learn that Kraft was the type of paper our drums were made of and not just the company that made them...
worked 6 years at WestRock as a Wet end corrugator operator on 2nd shift. It's a lot of work to keep up with demand especially around holidays a lot of 12-hour shifts and a lot of hot ass days the knowledge it takes to run a single facer, hang rolls do splices, line your web up have your starch damns just right keeping an eye out for blowouts, the list goes on, most folks don't understand what it takes to make your simple amazon box. more than likely, some of yall in the US have handled one of my boxes I've made lol.
@@LosDiezPrimeros10The glue is just your regular glue. Like the stuff you buy at the store. Corn starch and steam are used on the corrugator and ink+glue (sometimes) when converting. Some food-safe aerosols may come in contact with converted boxes/product.
@@Qblues941 I work on a rotary machine, love seeing products I made in the real world.
Papermaker here!
You should do a video about making paper out of recycled paper. These paper machines and their upstream sorting units are wonderful teaching pieces of physics!
I'd like to see the sorting
Agree!
Agree. I am a backtender on one of these machines. 5 years ago we were a mill that made white coated paper. It's been a challenge converting to making brown recycled paper
@@alanfitzgerald9026 i feel you :D
How can you make the recycled materials into a better quality product?
I worked in a corrugated container plant as a Project Engineer. We used roll stock from our own pulp paper plant. All trims and other wastes were sent back to main plant to be recycled. We made millions of square feet of board over 3 shifts each day. We made single and double wall corrugated. Some customers were sheet plants, most others bought boxes that were used in food industry. We had 6 flexos and other finishing machines. The company was bought and sold several times. It is a very competitive business. The joke around plant was 'why can't they just order plain old brown boxes with fixed dimensions and C flute'.
what company?
This is a great video! I’m a corrugated packaging designer with a degree in packaging, it’s pretty surreal to see design standards I use on a day-to-day basis in a RUclips video on boxes. It’s not easy to explain what I do to people outside the industry - great work!
I have always been fascinated by currogated cardboard since my childhood. I spent all my summer collecting cardboard boxes to use for festivals and crafts. Even now in my late 30's i collect cardboard to make toy models. Cardboard is a gift to mankind!
That's awesome. I used to make swords
My dad worked at a paper mill for 36years. He was a boiler operator burning the waste chemicals from making pulp to produce electricity. Great video
Mad respect for your dad; that is not an easy job. Not only are the process chemicals from pulping burned in the recovery boiler to produce steam and electricity for the mill, the chemicals are recovered and reused to act as the active chemical in Kraft pulping again! This "liquor" chemical recovery loop is what makes Kraft pulping economical, sustainable, and efficient.
Great video! Very easy for anyone outside of the industry to understand how corrugated board is made. I always struggle to tell anyone new I meet what I do but now I can just show them this video haha. My family and I manufacture the steam systems to provide the heat and pressure to make the corrugated sheets, and have been doing so since 1907. It's an extremely niche industry, and we're one of three companies in the country that do it.
That is so fascinating. I wish I could take a field trip to see what the process looks like.
I worked in a cardboard factory a few years ago as a maintenance engineer, it’s incredible, all the scraps get recycled and output is incredible
My uncle owns a chain of factories that comprises 4 levels of manufacturing facilities to completely the whole ecosystem:
1. called tier 1 factories: making pulps from recycled cardboards
2. called tier 1 factories: making corrugated boards from paper
3. called tier 2 factories: making painted packaging from cardboards
4. cardboard recycling factories: recycling used cardboards and paper and cut them into pieces and then press them into cubes
They are one of the biggest packaging solution providers to Nike for their footwear packaging.
You have done a great job! Most of the contents in your video are correct. I just would like to add two more things:
1. the recycled pulps can produce materials mainly for corrugated side (the inner side) of the cardboard and cannot be 100% used to produce the facing board/paper of the cardboard because of strength requirement.
2. the recycled pulps are usually mixed with the virgin pulps to make the facing board/paper to provide enough strength.
You are correct that the strongest liner board is made from virgin pulp fiber. But liner board can also be made out of 100% recycled paper as well. I have made many, many tons of liner from recycled fiber. It is called test liner. It is a little weaker. Therfore test liner will run a little heavier in order to meet the same strength requirement. New approaches also alow line to be made by adding dry stench additive or to be starch coated.
Yes, liner board can be made with 100% Recycled wood fibers.
@Industrial Sleep : usually the glue used is just a kind of starch.. mixed with water in some particular portion.. even the paints are usually bean oil based.. which make them nontoxic..
@@TheHavocdog : You are also right.. I also know such "test liner".. but some customers don't really like them for such test liner adds the overall packaging weights considerably..
Cardboard is way more fascinating than I thought! Well done!
Yea
The rules are simple: When New Mind posts a video on a subject... that subject becomes fascinating.
ruclips.net/video/cRsviIaSvqE/видео.html
Gets home from work and up this pops .. perfection
I worked for a few years as a software engineer for a company that made software that scheduled orders through the various stages of corrugated box manufacture. At the time I was amazed at how interesting the process was and how details of each order interacted with other orders. I had an opportunity to spend several weeks on site at a box manufacturing facility interacting with the scheduling staff as well as the individual finishing machine operators. I learned a lot. The scheduling process required very specialized knowledge that we were trying to encapsulate in our scheduling algorithms. It's hard to explain to most people how something as seemingly mundane as a "cardboard" box can be so interesting. Thank you for this video. It both took me back to an interesting time in my career, and showed me a close-up view of what my former company's customers were all about.
Another great video. I used to operate/maintain machines that created boxes. The technology is actually still quite fascinating even after 30+ years in the industry.
Do I care about cardboard? Not in the slightest!
Do I care about cardboard when New Mind posts a video about it? Oh yes absolutely! My nerditude outright demands this mental powerup! This essential knowledge must not be lost in the vast information ocean of the internet! I shall watch it with great delight this very instant!
It seems like you only hear about plastic recycling but it is like the least recyclable material compared to other packaging materials.
As someone who works on a corrugator in real life, I am surprised how accurate your information was about the corrugator. Pretty spot on, good job!
I own 2 semi automatic corrugated box factory! And have to say you have covered everything with perfection. I'm saving this video to show others.
Former packaging designer and sheet plant owner here. I found your video very informative for some of us in the industry and consumers. It would have been nice to have seen in your video the use of a flexo-folder-gluer cranking out finished RSCs instead of just a printer-slotter press without a stacker dropping flat blanks on the ground.
Yeah, the blanks on the ground bit was weird. At least drop them on a pallet or something.
if only the sustainability of standardized boxes could be said about plastic wrap. Working retail and seeing how much plastic waste is produced from specific departments (Apparel, and beverage packaging) is gross. It makes me a little more hopeful about the planet that the insane amount of cardboard we go through is almost all recyclable though
Doesn’t even matter if cardboard is wasted though the small amount is inherently renewable.
Been in Transportation in one facet or another for over 36 years and I have to say this video was spot on. When I was in my 20's I worked in a shipping Dept for a retailer and when you got to the classification of box sizes you brought back memories. 25 year veteran truck driver still peddling boxes. Well Done Sir!
I spent a couple years making the knives that cut flaps, handles, vents, as well as the slitting knives that cut the ends of each box. I never got to see the process, so I really appreciated this really nice overview.
Cardboard is my world! I'm the cardboard Ninja! You can make so many DIY projects with cardboard!
When I was in the Army, my brother sent a care package. He used popcorn which A) made it smell wonderful b) lightweight but protective c) everyone in my platoon knew they were in for a treat. When I opened it, it was full of popcorn that was protecting MREs. I actually laughed at the sheer genius of the prank. Popcorn to build the excitement (through the box, no less) and then the crushing but funny let down. At least we enjoyed the popcorn. Also, this video was very much enjoyable!
Solid Snake: Interesting....
Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well...
As someone who has spent the last 2 decades in the secondary packaging industry (The pretty packaging that holds the products that go in the corrugated boxes.) I still find the whole paper industry to be exciting and interesting. You did a great job with the video!
@Industrial Sleep the short answer, it depends on the glue used. There are indeed plant and water based glues and it is completely possible it is organic. Only the manufacturer of the glue and/or packaging manufacturer could answer this question. The packager of the compost may know, but only if they asked or were told. A reputable merchant should be able to provide certifications if they are claiming it is all organic. If they cannot, I wouldn't trust them.
My Dad always said they guy who patent the idea of that little bit of plastic at the end of your shoe lace was a genius
Judging by the thumbnail I thought this was a wendover video :D
It's a nice style tho...
Check his back catalogue. New Mind can make mostly any subject interesting. And he is one of the few "fact channels" where you never see people in the relevant field correct him. His research is as good as his presenting style.
Wow! I was unaware of the science and sustainability around cardboard. It's almost a miracle material!
Totally unlike solar panels and windmills, neither of which are recyclable and require vast quantities of ore extraction, use of heavy metals and leave lots of hazardous waste behind.
@@jayjaynella4539 Don't forget the transportation and logistics costs!
It is
Thank you for a quality content! As a designer, I turned to used corrugated cardboard boxes I find on the streets to make longlasting furniture and the more I work with the material, the better I like it.
I feel like I'm right there, walking through the cardboard factory with Bart and his class.
These types of videos are what makes RUclips so special; random people get to learn about random topics they never knew they were interested in. Thanks, great video!
I am an artist and sculptor, and I have always loved corrugated cardboard, for building smaller scale models of future, larger sculptures. I love that it can be painted with "house paint' latex, or acrylics, and spray painted. I have enjoyed building sculptures that fold up or employ interlocking tabs. I use it to build complex boxes, to send my sculptures, off to galleries. I have seen amazing abstract collages, of torn and cut cardboard. I have created "full body covering" costumes with corrugated cardboard. I have created 3-D hats, from it as well. My obsession with the boxes, means when I find a good one in the trash, I must have it. Oddly, none of my cats have never shown one iota of interest in playing inside any of my boxes.
Fascinating and not at all invisible. We all get packages delivered to our homes and offices. In mine we use albox cutters to reduce the boxes to tidy piles for recycling. Cardboard is integral to all our lives. And knowing more about the things that make our lives possible is always a good thing, especially if we get to learn a bit about the chemistry, engineering, hard work and inventiveness of those involved. Thank you.
As a design student from India, I am doing research on cardboard box, it's history and system map and paradigm shift. I found this video very informative. Well done!
@5:43 "...in an unprecedented cooperative effort between manufacturers forming an association..."
Most beautiful way of saying creating a monopoly. ^_^
A cardboard box. A cardboard box usually consists of a thin pasteboard with a corrugated paper center. They are usually made of recycled paper. It was first invented in Europe over one hundred years ago. It was originally used to absorb one's sweat when wearing hats. With the same amount of wood to make one wooden box, you can make six or seven cardboard boxes. And since it's recyclable, it's highly economical. In addition, it is strong and easy to store. That is why it is widely used for packing. But to avoid damaging weapons and other delicate instruments when shipping them, they should be packed in stronger boxes, like... wood or something. Also, the crevices should be filled with Styrofoam to prevent them from moving around. ...So anyway Snake, what's with the box?
As a retailer and wholesaler of disc golf discs and equipment, I make sure our carboard boxes work hard; sometimes they've already been used twice when they arrive, and they get a second or third use going out to retailers. I really despise the amount of trash our business produces, even though the amount is small. We recycle everything we possibly can, including bottle tops, and all soft plastics. We use cellulose packing tape, and only use sustainable expanded paper packing.
Our own custom-made cardboard shipping boxes use the lightest grade material to achieve their single-use objective. And our custom-made display boxes are made of the best and strongest possible material to ensure great longevity before being recycled.
Great video. Glad you took the time to explain the difference in what people call cardboard vs. what is corrugated. 23 years in this industry and no plans to leave it.
I wonder if Amazon has it's own cardboard making divisions...probably the largest single customer.
TLDR: No, I don't think so. Boxes include stamps with official testing info, and they include points of orgin. For me, our boxes come from two local sources.
I can only offer you my own ancedotal experience, but I work at an Amazon Facility here in Colorado, as a packer. I build more cardboard boxes in a day then I had ever seen in a my life.
Each cardboard box has to have a stamp/logo that gives basic certified testing results such as: thickness, burst strength, dimensions, etc.
These markers also include the orgin of the box's manufacturer. Since I'm in Colorado, we get our boxes from two main sources. One in Golden, and one in Wheat ridge.
So, I don't think Amazon has its own in-house cardboard division.
Edit: At least not where I'm located
@@lvrboi92 Thank you.
@@lvrboi92 I'm honestly surprised given their obsession with bringing every single layer of the logistics chain under their roof that they don't own everything from the forests to the paper mills to the cardboard plants to feed their own appetite and optimize their costs, as well as sell them to their partners for a handsome profit.
@@W1ldTangent In a functional society, that level of vertical integration would get Amazon busted apart before you could say "gilded age 2."
@@lvrboi92 I believe International Paper and WestRock are the largest paperboard suppliers for Amazon. Sometimes companies have exclusive rights to costumers (i.e. WestRock exclusively makes Chick-Fil-A's bleached packaging papers), but Amazon is so large that they likely get they paper from multiple manufactures who are relatively close to their packaging sites. I'm sure Amazon does specify quality specs for their producers though. Does that align with your experience?
The sustainable recyclability of paper is why I always insist on paper grocery bags (if I don't have my reusable totes handy). Sadly, many stores have stopped offering paper options (looking at you Walmart). You can always grow more paper, you can't grow more plastic (at least not traditional, bio-based is a whole nother can of worms). But, hey, plastic shopping bags are still great for dirty kitty litter, or other mini, one-off trash bag needs.
I would like to take this opportunity as a man who's been homeless since 2012 to thank whatever amounts to the American cardboard council for all the work they do.
I've always appreciated cardboard boxes. Amazing.
I've shipped my designs around the world for over 30 years. So CORRUGATED CARDBOARD boxes are a critical and ever-present part of my professional life. Great Video. Thank you very much.
I was just looking at it, and suddenly I got this irresistible urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here: in the box!
And then, when I put it on, I suddenly got this feeling of inner peace. I can't put it into words. I feel... safe. Like this is where I was meant to be. Like I'd found the key to true happiness.
You're a cat.
it makes me really happy to hear how easy and useful it is to recycle cardboard. because i know a majority of the things that we "recycle" arent ACTUALLY recycled and just shipped off elsewhere or thrown away, the process of recycling too expensive compared to virgin production to be profitable. so this makes me feel better about the use of cardboard
This got me totally hooked. Astonishing how much went into arriving at a product we all use on a daily basis. Even more astonishing is the sheer depth and quality of this video - this must have taken a ton of work and research. VERY well done.
This is a very well-done documentary. The science behind "the box" has simplified so much about e-commerce logistics, to the point that most people do not realize the options, decisions, and testing needed for new product development in the distribution space. Thank you for taking time and putting in a ton of effort to concisely detail the life and lifecycle of "the box".
I am former flexographic operator, I moved into tooling and die layout engineering. Currently I schedule a sheet plant and I must say this is a awesome video and I learned a little bit from this. Well made!!!
My father ran a small welding and machine shop that made machines for Michelman (a coating manufacturing company) that applied coatings to the cardboard during is manufacture and was inserted in the production line. We made simple blade coaters (used a rubber blade to apply and control the amount of the chemical coating and later one that used various rollers and a metering rod that could run 1000 fpm for high volume production. I helped build the blade coaters and made detailed drawings of the various parts using the simple shop sketches they had been using for some time as well as drawings of the initial prototypes of the larger coater machine. This was during the 80's and early 90's.
How the heck did you make this so fascinating to watch?!?!
SUBSCRIBED!
I work for a shipping company and touch cardboard every day. I never would have imagined how something I easily ignore is so complex.
Excellent video about one more ingenious invention which would go unnoticed without people and channels like you.
Ive been in the corrugated board industry for about 6 years now ever since I left high school and it is a very good industry to get into very well-paid usually and very in demand most companies have no layoff because throughout all seasons boxes are needed
As someone who has made sculptures out of cardboard for years, I loved this.
What you are talking about is technically not cardboard. It is corrugated fiberboard. Cardboard is not corrugated and a type of whych is what playing cards are made of. I worked in the industry for years and we called this simply corrugated and there are many types and grades used for different purposes. Good job on this video, especially using the correct terminology.
Great video! I work at a factory that produce these products. You did a good job explaining the process.
From what I know the average piece of cardboard is recycled up to 22 times as one last year I think.
Bravo! As a packaging engineer and corrugated design (ArtiosCad) instructor I think you nailed it! The history is very interesting and well delivered. Note: Flexographic rather that lithographic printing is the primary printing process used in printing directly on corrugated fiberboard.
This past weekend I really thought about cardboard... how it was produced, to what extent it could be recycled, how much energy does it take and so forth. Essentially everything this industrial covered. I have worked on a million of these and I think you guys did a great job! (How'd ya like those concrete floors after a few days?) Seriously, thanks for making something I was really wondering about instantly available. Very cool!
OK... I do have one papermaking question...ish.
I was wondering about the virgin cellulose fibers - which are the very reason we use wood to make paper in the first place - get cut up and crushed to some extent each and every step of the way. At what point are those bits of paper simply too expensive to deal with. I mean, kaolin is a superfine clay with no fibrose binding power, but it's added for that glossy look and silky feel of all those magazine in the grocery store. After a while, it seems like the watery pulp you'd get would be so slimy it would gross out a frog. Does it go down a drain or is it filtered and used as a mulch additive?
It is funny/sad that we jumped through all the hoops to get paper bags banned to "save the trees" only to find out those tightly stuffed plastic bags your wife makes you recycle HAVE JUST SAILED 'ROUND THE WORLD, and are sitting on barges off New Jersey. The whole plastic recycling thing is just a marketing tool. It makes people feel like it's OK to use lot's of plastic because COVID, and mainly, you get to recycle all that extra packaging, not to mention the product containers. See! You aren't part of the problem... you recycle! But rather than actually see many useful products like conduit , pipes and wiring, every few years somebody puts up a billboard about a 100% Recycled (Min 10% Post-consumer) Door mat. And that's it.
It's just like years ago I did some filming (video-taping) of some really innovative attempts to recycle used tires and those dug out of hundreds of illegal dump sites. The company is well-respected, and with very good reason. But despite all their efforts, especially considering the literal mountains of tires all over the US, there didn't appear to be anything that really caught on. They tried very hard to solve a problem directly affected by their product, even if they had not been the originator of a specific exemplar. I really respect that, and I'll bet they spent a fortune doing it.
But you know, I think that manufacturer mande a sincere and well-meaning effort to solve the waste of all that energy and the natural resources it took to make 1Tire x (all the waste tires) = ____. Better than trying to hide it like oil companies, big tobacco, and huge agricultural mega-companies like JBS, Pepsico, Archer Daniels Midland, Nestle, Coke and others. It's great to see how a natural and recyclable product like paper pulp can be used instead of petroleum based plastics that never go away.
Thanks again for a really well done industrial info/marketing video. Keep up the great work!
You know you've been watching too many Metal Gear Solid videos when you start getting cardboard box videos recommended to you 💀
In a past life I had exposure to the die board industry. High quality dense dimensionally stable plywood had slots cut in it with an industrial laser machine tool. Then knife-edges were pressed into the slots, hand formed into curves when called for.
The sheets of cardboard stock would be pressed onto the die board to cut the flaps, etc...
Sometimes a pad of cushy foam to help push the cardboard off after pressing. Send box flats to printer if you didn't do it yourself. Send to packaging plant. Bill net 30. Profit.
I work for one of the biggest paper manufacturers and this explained things better than 5 years of working here has - though in my defense I’m in IT, not on the production floor
Buddy, if you think I'm going to watch a 17 minute video on the design and history of cardboard boxes,
you're absolutely fucking right
My brother was an engineer involved in paper recycling for many years. Now, I understand what he did. Thanks, Tina, Al's wife
I love learning about the small and mostly overlooked technologies that, at scale, make up the cornerstones of our civilization. The little miracles that we take for granted. Good stuff!
The pioneer cardboard patent inventors long forgotten, but their legacy still lives with us today!
I am really interested in engineering and I have my mind set on becoming one but even I am sometimes surprised at just how much thinking and research has gone into literally every part of my life. Like there's probably an entire journal even the tiniest objects in my home and someone has probably spent months or years thinking about all the things I touch during my daily life. It's kinda mind boggling and impressive at the same time because just 200 years ago this wouldn't have been true at all but now nothing is left up to chance. It's honestly a bit exhausting to think about sometimes because with the competitions I've taken part in I know how exhausting it can be to work on just like one tiny thing so to realize that everything had that amount of thinking put into it makes me tired to just think about. It is however also incredibly impressive that humanity has been able to achieve that, an entire world where everything has gone through a scientific process of design to make it as fit for purpose as possible, that's a small miracle and a taste of utopia on it's own.
I like it when you think outside of the box 📦....
Welcome to the only notification in history that made me excited to learn about... cardboard! I adore this channel for exactly that reason.
My partner and I designed a simple new type of corrugated cardboard food container, but weren’t sure if it was food safe. I contacted the CPA and was delighted to find out that it was. From the video, I found out why. Thanks.
THIS SORT OF CONTENT IS WHAT IM LOOKING FOR!
This video was so well made I watched the entire 17 minutes about cardboard. If this was on TV it wouldve been 45 minutes long, rife with commercials every 4 and a half minutes
That taught me some useful stuff! A few years ago a plant that produces papers and liner for boxes from recycled stock opened in our town. It takes a lot more STEM than I had appreciated.
The story of how two brothers, and five other men parlayed a small business loan into a thriving paper goods concern is a long and interesting one. And here it is...
It all began with the fling of Form 637A, the application for a small business or farm...
Every topic you tackle becomes incredible and very fascinating! I didn't know cardboard could be so mesmerizing.
Can't believe I'm watching a documentary about the history, science and innovation behind the cardboard but here I am.... and not only that... I'm enjoying it too
I find it amazing to see all of us that work in the industry here in the comments section talking about how amazing it is to see this process everyday and how difficult it is to explain to people. I specialize in the cranes that unload log trucks at these mills and saw mills. There are only a handful of us in the US that do it. (Im typing this from 120ft in the air working on a crane rn)
Corrugated fiberboard. I worked in a plant that made it it. And I worked in a plant used it to make shipping containers.
Can’t walk past a box without glancing at its construction. And find it difficult to not take home a good double-walled box.
Thanks for this excellent treatment of a topic that has always fascinated me! I have worked in the grocery and restaurant businesses, and always been intrigued by the apparently endless variety of ways that cardboard boxes are utilized. If you ever cared to go further down that rabbit hole, I would love to learn more about how the orientation and construction techniques impact the various requirements of different products. There is clearly an intersection of the technical merits and economics as well...I am amazed by how many ways there are to put together this
humble product, and would like to know more about what drives this diversity of approaches. Probably too geeky for most folks...any way, thanks and great work!
Interesting that the fluting appears to have begun as a way to protect glass bottles and only later was fluting applied more generally. The simple act of creating flutes in the center section of cardboard vastly increases the strength and stiffness at very little cost. This is one of the great engineering accomplishments.
I know a video is gonna be good when brilliant is the sponsor I swear.
My mom is a graphic designer for a corrugated company and has thought me a lot of this but it’s so cool to see a video on this
This was excellent! Detailed, informative, and well paced.
I love watching videos like this at night because I find it genuinely interesting and it helps my wife get to sleep in a matter of seconds
i really enjoyed the detail you went into on how cardboard is manufactured and recycled
Love the video, but it should be the Science of Corrugated Packaging.
I work in the corrugated paper world. Corrugated and cardboard are 2 different items. Corrugated takes considerably more to produce than cardboard. Cardboard is for things like Mountain Dew boxes, backing boards to products like batteries, or items that don't require much protection. It consists of only one very heavy, thick paper to form the packaging.
Corrugated packaging is meant to protect the item for shipping and requires a ton of manipulation to get a box that can withstand some serious trauma. At least 2 different types of paper are bonded together after forming one of the pieces into flutes and then at least one other outer liner is bonded to that to form the corrugated package sheet.
A lot of corrugated plants will legitimately get upset at anyone calling their product cardboard, as it basically disregards the efforts they've made to produce the corrugated packaging.
I’m in such a bad cycle I’d rather watch the science of cardboard at 5am than sleep
As a packaging working man I can now say I love it
Love me some high quality box...
i used to work with my dad as a packaging engineer and this brought back some memories haha. very interesting!