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FAQs About Corrugated Cardboard Boxes

Corrugated cardboard is one of the most popular materials for packaging items, and it is highly probable that its favourability won’t change anytime soon. It is a low-costing, strong, and crush resistant packaging option. When buying cardboard boxes or other forms of wrapping for items, asking questions can help save yourself a lot of time and money. That is why Davpack has compiled a list of questions that are regularly asked about corrugated cardboard boxes to make sure you are choosing and using the most suitable form of packaging for them instead of having to guess and potentially end up with damaged stock during transit.

1. What is corrugated cardboard?
A standard sheet of corrugated cardboard consists of a sheet of fluted material - which has a crimped pattern - sandwiched between two layers of paper - called the inner and outer liners. Once the flute is glued to the liners a sheet of crush-resistant, rigid and strong piece of corrugated cardboard is formed.

2. What are the different forms of cardboard boxes available to buy?

Single Wall: This type of corrugated cardboard has one piece of flute glued between the inner and outer layer of paper. This form of box can hold loads that weigh up to 10 kilograms.

Double Wall: Adding an extra flute and sheet of the paper liner to a single wall board creates a double wall, which adds extra stability and strength to the packaging material alongside, giving it the ability to hold up to 30kg loads.

Triple Wall: Like with double wall, triple wall corrugated cardboard glues another piece of flute and liner to the sheet making it triple layered. This is helpful for the transportation of heavy or large items and gives the boxes a stable palletised load capacity of up to 50kg when the weight is evenly dispersed.

3. What types of paper are most popular for the sheet liners?

Kraft Paper: Kraft is made from softwood trees. It is considered a virgin material. It is the strongest type of paper available for corrugated cardboard to and is the easiest to print designs on.

Test Paper: This variant of paper is a double-layered or a duplex style of paper. Because test paper is a recycled material, it is not as strong as Kraft nor as easy to print anything on so most commonly takes form as the inner liner.

There are several other options available that businesses can choose to use from:

- Kraft (K) = Virgin Kraft paper

- Test 3 (T) = Fully recycled liner

- Semi Chem (SC) = Virgin fibres using neutral sulphite semi-chemical process

- Waste Based (WB) = 100% recycled fibres

This list does not name all the papers that can be used for corrugated cardboard as there are also numerous other specialist papers available that can be requested depending on the supplier. Davpack also have a blog naming all the different types of liners, wall thicknesses, flutes and grades used for corrugated cardboard boxes. If you are interesting in finding out more about the material then you should definitely read it!

4. How is the paperweight of corrugated cardboard measured?

The weight of the material measured the same way for every form of corrugated cardboard, the unit used is ‘gsm’. The expression gsm is an abbreviation of Grams per Square Meter, meaning, if you took a square meter of the paper and weighed it, the result you end up with is the grams of that particular paper for one square meter.

5. What type of box won't be easily crushed in the post?

Double or triple wall cardboard boxes offer extra thickness and protection to items during transit. Due to multiple layers of cardboard sheets being glued together, these boxes offer superior strength against mishandling or having other parcels stacked on top of them.

6. What is the best type of box to send delicate items in?

As previously mentioned if you want to have a higher chance of the boxes not showing any signs of damage, double or triple wall cardboard boxes are the best choice for your items. However, it is always useful to add internal forms of protections such as packing paper or bubble wrap to help absorb vibrations or shocks that the box may not be able to withstand alone.

7. Are there standard box types and sizes?

Davpack have a warehouse full of stock size boxes which you can find the prices of on our individual product pages. If that is all you need, you can easily find generic corrugated cardboard box shapes and sizes on our website. However, we can also provide custom cardboard boxes for more irregular shaped items if that is what your company is looking for.

8. What are other names for corrugated cardboard?

Corrugated cardboard is also known as combined board, corrugated fibreboard, and corrugated board. It is important to note that when a material is only called cardboard, this doesn’t always mean that it is corrugated.

9. Is corrugated cardboard recyclable?

Yes, it is both recyclable and biodegradable! It will break down in the environment over time, but how long this takes can vary depending on what environment it is in. All of our cardboard boxes are made from at least 75% recycled material, with some even being 100% recycled! We also have a large range of eco-packaging alternatives available to help reduce our customers’ environmental impact.

10. Is corrugated cardboard always brown?

No, not only can we provide cardboard boxes that have a stylish white finish – both in single and double wall – but also here at Davpack, we create bespoke packaging which can have your business' logo or any specific designs printed onto it to add a more personal touch to your products. If you have any questions surrounding our custom packaging, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our customer services team at cs@davpack.co.uk