Most businesses have either considered moving away from plastic packaging in favour of custom cardboard boxes or have already made that transition.

The capabilities of cardboard continue to be explored and furthered, with its use expanding from recyclable shipping containers to architectural elements, and in a world where people are more mindful than ever of their impact on it, cardboard’s sustainability becomes a bigger strength.

Many, if not most, businesses use cardboard as their main shipping material, but transitioning from cardboard postal boxes to product packaging is not always a straightforward process, and it is best to work with experts to ensure that cardboard boxes are the right option for you.

In many cases, they are the best, most affordable and most prolific form of packaging, to the point that they are used as an economic indicator, but they are not for everyone and every use case.

To understand why, it is worth exploring the benefits and considerations you need to make when using cardboard boxes to display your product, when it works and what misconceptions need to be debunked.

What Are The Biggest Advantages Of Cardboard For Product Packaging?

Exploring the benefits of cardboard means not only examining the specific features of cardboard from the perspective of a manufacturer and retailer, but also the wider macro benefits when it comes to examining cardboard’s place in the wider supply chain. 

Recyclable

By far the biggest and most important advantage is that cardboard is easy to recycle for end users. Nearly every country in the world has a robust cardboard recycling policy which allows for delivery waste to be shoved in a recycling bin and repulped into new cardboard.

There are limitations to this which must be explored when considering cardboard boxes, but it benefits from not only being theoretically recyclable but easy to be recycled in practice, second only to aluminium cans in that respect.

Reusable

Another part of the “reduce, reuse, recycle” equation that benefits cardboard significantly is that it is very reusable. Whilst cardboard can be recycled, particularly large or useful boxes will often simply be reused.

Having a cardboard box to hand is perfect if you want to post anything, are moving house or need a temporary storage solution for documents or random items, so there is an ancillary appeal to using cardboard as a storage material even after the product has been taken out.

Cardboard can even be used for other purposes; the creative possibilities and accessibility of cardboard have made it so popular for children and pets that it was inducted into the National Toy Hall Of Fame alongside the board game Candy Land and the jack-in-the-box.

Long-Lasting

For being a recyclable and biodegradable storage medium, cardboard is remarkably long-lasting and stable, able to maintain structural rigidity for years without losing too much of its strength.

There are some cardboard boxes that have survived for over a century, and many that have lasted for decades without any significant signs of wear.

What Should You Consider Before Using Cardboard For Packaging?

Cardboard is a remarkably effective packaging material that is much stronger, longer-lasting, and more versatile than it often gets credit for, but there are considerations that must be made, as it is not always the best choice in every situation.

Here are some of the considerations to make and how you can sometimes find alternative cardboard-based products which work around these issues.

Vulnerable To Moisture

Cardboard lasts a long time unless it is exposed to moisture, which can cause it to collapse or even melt.

This is a problem seen more commonly in recent years as protocols surrounding deliveries have changed and a growing number of cardboard boxes are left on the doorstep exposed to the rain.

This is not an unsolvable problem; there are coatings that can be added to cardboard to make it more waterproof, which is why cardboard cups and higher-end cardboard box packaging can be made that do survive the elements slightly better.

Less Robust Than Other Materials

Cardboard is not typically built to last, and the fact that so many cardboard boxes endure as much as they can is down as much to serendipity as design.

A cardboard box is not always the best choice for storing and transporting particularly heavy goods, and it is not inherently stackable without modifications to its design in order to make it more robust.

Not Infinitely Recyclable

A common misconception is that cardboard can be recycled forever, when the reality is that cardboard can generally be repulped and reused between five and seven times before it becomes too weak to be used.

Paper mills tend to use a mix of old and new cardboard fibres for this reason, and it is important to be clear about what is meant by a claim such as “100 per cent recycled cardboard”.