Cartons – the No. 1 shipping material – but also really sustainable?

Every day, the packaging and logistics industries deal with millions of shipping boxes of different sizes and qualities. Most of them are folding cartons. The manufacturer delivers them to the retailer in the folded state. The box is unfolded, filled, closed and shipped by a machine or in a few simple steps. Once at the recipient, it will be opened, emptied, and disposed of in the blue trash can. From there, it makes its way to the material or recycling centre. Here, the shipping and packaging materials are sorted and recycled. There are so many cycles of cardboard boxes. 

Whether this is really feasible and to what extent depends on the sustainability of the cardboard material, and in this context, also on its environmental friendliness. The composite cardboard, which is provided with an additional inner coating of polyethylene or aluminium, cannot and should not be disposed of together with waste paper. It is not recyclable and, therefore, not environmentally friendly.

Made of these materials are cardboard boxes.

Statistics show that today more than 80% of cardboard and corrugated board are made up of waste paper. This is collected and recycled in homes and businesses. Recycled products are materials like cardboard and, in turn, paper.

Other raw carton board products include lignin or cellulose fibres made from wood. The carton board production consists of corrugated boards. The corrugation of the paper improves the statics of the material. This increases the load capacity. Common requirements are one-, two-, or three-wave cardboard boxes. Of particular importance-corrugated cardboard and, in this respect, the carton is composed of at least 80% of the so-called primary fibres. They are not obtained from waste paper but from previously unprocessed wood. These long and fresh fibres provide a particularly strong structure.

Cartons and their differences

The cartons intended for trade are mainly classified according to the types of fibres. The generally applicable key is based on characteristics such as surface treatment or substance input. The surface is divided into uncoated and pigment coated.

The five substance inputs are

– C –

wood pulp – D –

recycled pulp with grey back –

N – chemically unbleached virgin fibre

– T – recycled pulp with brown, yellow or white back – Z – chemically bleached virgin fibre

Sustainability of cartons – when and why

Sustainability is always given if the carton is made from recyclable and biodegradable materials. Another criterion is the origin of the raw materials used to produce the board. This refers to wood fibres from forests with sustainable management.

70% to 80% of the wood fibres for the Europe-wide cardboard industry come from European forests, especially from Scandinavia, Finland and Sweden. The forest stands there are all sustainable, and their annual growth rate is much higher than the harvest. Common and well-known certification systems are the Forest Stewardship Council FSC® or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, PEFC™ for short.

How environmentally friendly is the carton board as a packaging material

Environmental friendliness is synonymous with a non-undue impact on the environment. Examples of such impairments are waste and emissions or air, soil and water pollution from contaminated sites.

The less environmental pollution of cardboard packaging, the more environmentally friendly and it is directly related to the environment, and the higher the sustainability.

The positive, i.e. environmentally friendly criteria, including biodegradability, multiple-use and recyclability. In addition, fossil raw materials should be removed as much as possible or completely in the production process. Ultimately, CO² emissions must be kept to an absolute minimum during the manufacturing process. More and more manufacturers put high or maximum environmental labels on their packaging materials.

Recycling of cardboard boxes – dry and uncontaminated

Basically, cardboard is a high-quality recyclable material made of paper. For cardboard boxes and packaging materials, corrugated cardboard and grey cardboard are the most used. Corrugated cardboard consists of several layers of corrugated and flat cardboard, and cardboard or fibreboard is made from recycled cardboard. This can be recycled several to many times.

Cardboard contaminated with oil or fat, such as pizza boxes, cannot be recycled into high-quality cardboard. The same applies to wet cardboard. The clogs the sorting machine used in the initial stages of the carton recycling process.

Here is an example:

It takes three tons of wood to produce one ton of fresh cardboard. Recycling old cardboard boxes for the production of new cardboard boxes can save or, in other words, protect the corresponding tree populations. Waste separation and sorting are indispensable prerequisites for cardboard recycling.

Nothing works without cartons as packaging material.

In conclusion, it should be noted that today and in the future, logistics without cardboard as a packaging material is neither conceivable nor feasible. In order to conserve raw material resources and for environmental reasons, or more specifically, attributes such as sustainability, environmental friendliness and recyclability cannot be dispensed with.

Read our blog on How To Reduce Packaging Waste?