CARTON

'Carton' is the name of certain types of containers typically made from paperboard which is also sometimes known as "cardboard".

Contents

Artistic design

Packaging cartons

Types of cartons

Packaging history

Shape

Materials

Content

Labeling

Dosing

Faces of missing children

Carton-pierre

Sources

See also

Artistic design

In art history, the carton (pronounced the French way) was a drawing on ordinary cardboard, used as life-size design for the manufacture in an atelier of a valuable Tapestry, such as a gobelin. During the weaving it hung behind the tapestry in the making, a time-consuming process thus in a creative sense simplified to 'mechanical' painting-by-numbers.
As these were extremely valuable, often commanded by the very richest art-buyers, including princes who hung them in their palaces and even took them on their travels as prestigious displays of wealth, often with a visual message, especially the world-famous Flemish ateliers were deemed worthy to have cartons made by some of the greatest graphic artists of the time, including such celebrated painters as Rubens.

Packaging cartons

Types of cartons

A carton is a type of packaging, generally for food. They come in many different shapes; milk cartons are upright boxes with spouts, egg cartons are long boxes with cups to hold the eggs upright.
Egg cartons or trays are designed to protect eggs while in transit. There are three types of raw materials which are used in the manufacture of egg cartons: recycled paper, styrofoam and, more recently, PET.
In North America, the three largest producers of egg cartons are CKF Inc., Hartmann North America and Pactiv Corporation.

Packaging history

An early American packaging industry pioneer was the Kieckhefer Container Company, which was run by John W. Kieckhefer. The company excelled in the use of fibre shipping containers, which especially included the paper milk carton. In 1957, through an exchange of stock, the Kieckhefer Conatiner Co. holdings were merged with the Weyerhauser Timber Company of Tacoma, Washington.

Shape

Although quite often shaped like a cuboid, it is not uncommon to find cartons lacking right angles and straight edges, as in squrounds used for ice cream. The number of corners on any given carton is a function of the product it contains. For example, a product with eight vertices would require a box also with eight corners. Exceptions to this rule are irregularly shaped products, like televisions, in which case polystyrene inserts are used to standardize the shape.

Materials

Despite the name, cartons can be made from many materials, and in fact are often a composite.
Many cartons are made out of a single piece of paperboard. Depending on the need, this paperboard can be waxed or coated with polyethylene to form a moisture barrier. This may serve to contain a liquid product or keep a powder dry.

Content

A wide variety of products, mainly foods, are sold in cartons. The following are a few examples:


★ eggs

★ milk

★ juice

★ artificially flavored water

★ condensed chicken soup

★ condensed beef broth

★ 20 cigarettes (1 pack)

Labeling

The labels on cartons generally contain information. Much of this information is considered useful by many people, because it is very informative. For example, many labels have featured the following:

★ label - indicative of the name, contents and producer of the carton.

★ nutritional information

★ contact instructions - how to contact the manufacturer in a complicated way involving hand-drawn facsimiles.

★ ingredients - exposes the public to terms like propylene glycol for the first time.

★ contests - again, hand drawn facsimiles are involved. Self-addressed stamped envelopes are also often required.

Dosing

Several methods of controlling the quantity or dose of contents are available. One example is Integrated Dosing System for powder, granulate, and liquid products.

★ made as an integrated packaging part produced from the same material as the packaging

★ works automatically when the bottle, paper carton or other packaging is tilt down for distinct dosing

Faces of missing children

Beginning in the 1980s, milk cartons in the United States had faces of missing children printed on them with headlines such as "Have you seen me?" and descriptions of the children. The hope was that these photos would lead to the recovery of the children, and over 1,400 children were found as a direct result of this campaign.[1]

Carton-pierre

Under the French name of ''carton pierre'' ('stone carton') a substance which is essentially papier mâché is also largely employed as a substitute for plaster in the moulded ornaments of roofs and walls.

Sources

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See also

★ Box

★ Corrugated fiberboard Box

★ Egg carton

★ Paperboard

★ Packaging and labelling