The Process for Making Corrugated

In order to understand what corrugated boxes are, you first have to understand how they’re made.

 Made predominantly from trees, which are a renewable resource, corrugated packaging is the most recovered packaging material on the planet.

When corrugated is recycled, old corrugated containers (OCC) are dropped off, sorted, compacted, and baled for space-efficient storage. 

These bales are then transferred to a paper mill where they’re then broken down and the corrugated is inserted into a repulper, which is like a large blender.

In the repulper, they’re agitated to form a slushy pulp of fiber and water.

 The contaminants are removed and the remaining fiber solution is poured out onto a moving screen that allows the water to drain away,

 forming a continuous fiber mat. This mat is then pressed between rollers to remove any additional water.

The wet, continuous fiber is wound through a dryer where the top and bottom of it contact heated surfaces of drying cylinders,

 removing any remaining moisture from the paper. Once this process is finished, the paper is rolled onto a large reel spool where it is then slit and rewound into individual rolls, 

which is when the recycling process is considered complete. These paper rolls are shipped off to sheet feeders or corrugators where they will be converted into corrugated sheets, 

and later transformed into sustainable corrugated packaging.