Lina asks:
As a structural designer I wanted to know what the performance of the new light weight linerboards are. I do a lot of protective packaging and find it my strength since I’m fairly good at understanding the physic sides of packaging. I also have a degree in packaging but choose design since I also like the artistic side of packaging. Having said that there is still a lot of technical background and a box is just not a piece of corrugate anymore. I need some information on those new boards, now will it affect the stacking strength I’m sure but what else should I be aware of and I will probably have 101 questions if you have the patience. What is the difference in the manufacturing of the paper as oppose to the old way, is there new fillers involved? I know that there will be a new mill going up in the Niagara area and there is or will be one with Norampac in the east Ontario or West Quebec. These boards will be on my cutting table in a few months and I want to prepare for those changes and also be knowledgeable to my customer and sales staff.
You have asked the right questions. You’re right, there are not many public articles on these subjects, but we have several presentations and articles in BoxScore that shed light on these developments.
Do you have access to the most recent brochure Debra ordered from the AICC? Check out the website at www.aiccbox.org and click the products/store tab. There is a team of at least three-Randy Banks, Sarilee Norton, and myself that are introducing these concepts to the US, Mexico, and Canada marketplace. We each bring our own unique skill set and years of experience into this effort. As far as we know no one else is openly investigating these trends in containerboard and changes in corrugated packaging.
Randy brings knowledge of the history of recovered fibre and low substance containerboards with combining and converting applications from a European perspective. Sarilee’s expertise is in strategic planning and marketing and mine is in containerboard properties and combined board engineering. Randy and I have talked to your sheet feeder about trying some European grades so that you are ready to hit the ground running when the new board machine comes on line in 2013.
These new grades and corrugated structures will not be like anything we have experienced in the past. We may even look to alternative physical properties to define the strength properties of containerboards and additional test methods for the specifying the corrugated structure.
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