Folding carton

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The folding carton created the packaging industry as it is known today, beginning in the late 19th century. Basically, a folding carton is made of paperboard, and is cut, folded, laminated and printed for transport to manufacturers. The cartons are shipped flat to a manufacturer, which has its own machinery to fold the carton into its final shape as a container for a product. The classic example of such a carton a cereal box.

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[edit] Invention and development

In the 1840s, cartons were made by hand and held together with tacks and string, and used only for expensive items (such as jewelry). Although Charles Henry Foyle is described by some as the "inventor" of the paper carton, mass production of the cartons invented, partly by accident, at the Robert Gair Company in Brooklyn, New York. Machinery at the had been set up carelessly by a pressman, and the printing press cut through the material, ruining the press. Previously, cutting of printed cardboard had been done manually. Serendipitously, it was shown that printing and cutting could be done with one machine. Beginning from the mistake in 1879, Gair developed a process for mass production of boxes. In 1897, the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) became the first large user of the cartons, for Uneeda Biscuits, and other manufacturers followed suit. Each carton could be its own advertisement for the product, and the contents had a longer shelf life. The disadvantages, of course, were that the increased production of packaging led to the "throw away society" and an increased production of garbage.

[edit] Product characteristics

Folding cartons are now a $10 billion industry. Typically, cylinder board made from pulp from reprocessed scrap paper is used for most packages. Cartons for food are made from a higher grade and lighter solid sulfate board. Because of the limitations of cutting machinery, the thickness of the board is limited to 0.81 mm (0.032 in), and folding cartons are generally limited to holding a few pounds or kilograms of material.










[edit] References

Hanlon, Kelsey, and Forcinio; Handbook of Package Engineering (CRC Press, 1998)

[edit] External links