Cardboard Boxes & Cartons Definition
Clothing Definitions — warehouse and distribution terms from Apparel Search
A cardboard box — the shipping carton — is the unit in which clothing moves around the world. Factories pack finished garments into cardboard boxes marked with the style, sizes and destination; carriers and freight forwarders handle those boxes; distribution centers and store stockrooms open them. This page defines the cardboard box and the related carton, explains how the regular slotted carton is constructed and closed, and covers the specifications apparel buyers and warehouses use when they order, pack and stack them.
A cardboard box is a container composed of the material cardboard and in the shape of a box. Cardboard boxes are often used for packaging and sending items through the postal services. Cardboard boxes have been found to be very useful for the storage of items which will fit inside them. Cardboard boxes are typically folded at the base and sealed with either glue or adhesive tape.
Cardboard boxes are used for purposes other than storage. They are popularly used as cheap construction materials, for the construction of a wide range of things from science experiments, through children's toys, to Halloween costumes.
Living in a cardboard box is stereotypically associated with homelessness. However, in 2005 Melbourne architect Peter Ryan designed a house composed largely of cardboard.
History
The first commercial cardboard box was produced in England in 1817. The first cardboard box manufactured in the United States was made in 1895. By 1900, wooden crates and boxes were being replaced by corrugated paper shipping cartons. The advent of flaked cereals increased the use of cardboard boxes. The first to use cardboard boxes as cereal cartons were the Kellogg brothers
Cardboard box manufacture in France
The Muse du Cartonnage et de l'Imprimerie (Museum of the Cardboard Box) in Valras, France traces the history of cardboard box making in the region. Cardboard boxes have been used there since 1840 for transporting the Bombyx mori moth and its eggs from Japan to Europe by silk manufacturers, and for more than a century the manufacture of cardboard boxes was a major industry in the area
The cardboard box in popular culture
The Pink Floyd song Run Like Hell contains a line threatening the protagonist of the song against trying to have sex with his girlfriend, which goes, "If we catch you in the backseat trying to pick her locks / we're gonna send you home to mother in a cardboard box! / You better run!" The suggestion of being sent anywhere in a cardboard box has implications that are both gruesome and undignified.
Calvin of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip often used a cardboard box for imaginative purposes from a "transmogrifier" to a time machine.
The Austin Lounge Lizards perform a song Love in a Refrigerator Box which satirizes the "I was raised in a poor but loving family" narrative.
In the Metal Gear Solid video game series, the cardboard box is an item used by the main character in order to hide from enemies.
Learn about how to palletize cartons.
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Polyethylene Definition
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The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cardboard_box). Definition modified by Apparel Search 12/23/05. |
Anatomy of the Shipping Carton
The workhorse is the regular slotted carton: a single sheet of corrugated board, scored and slotted so it folds into a tube with four flaps at each end that meet in the middle. The manufacturer's joint is glued, taped or stitched at the factory that makes the box. Cartons ship flat to the garment factory and are erected at the packing bench, by hand or by case erector, then closed with tape (the subject of this section's adhesive tape definition) once filled. Variations serve special loads: half-slotted cartons with a separate lid, die-cut mailers for e-commerce, and heavy double-wall cartons for footwear and denim.
Inside the carton, the packing method protects the goods. Garments may be individually polybagged, folded around tissue, laid flat in layers, or hung in wardrobe cartons for transit to stores. Silica gel packets control moisture on sea voyages, and the carton itself may be lined with a plastic bag against container condensation. Weight limits apply: a carton too heavy injures handlers and bursts at the seams, so packing specifications cap carton weight and state the exact units per box.
Cartons as Information
A cardboard box in the apparel chain is also a document. Its printed marks and barcode label carry the data the supply chain runs on — vendor, purchase order, style, color and size breakdown, gross weight, and destination — read at each handoff by scanners at the distribution center door. Retailers publish carton specifications in their vendor manuals and charge back suppliers whose boxes arrive oversized, undermarked or wrongly packed. The humble definition on this page — a container of cardboard in the shape of a box, used for packaging and sending — therefore describes the physical object on which a large part of fashion logistics depends.
Common Questions
What is a cardboard box?
A cardboard box is a container made from cardboard — usually corrugated fiberboard — in the shape of a box, used to package, store and send goods. The regular slotted carton, with four flaps top and bottom, is the standard form in the apparel trade.
What is the difference between a box and a carton?
The terms are used almost interchangeably for cardboard containers. Carton is also the trade word for the folding paperboard package of a single retail item, while box tends to mean the sturdier corrugated shipping container.
How are cardboard boxes sealed and marked in apparel shipping?
They are closed with adhesive tape or staples, then marked — by printing, labels or stencils — with the contents, style and size breakdown, quantity, purchase order and destination, so the box can be routed and checked without opening it.