How to Start a Cardboard Manufacturing Business

Introduction start a Cardboard manufacturing business

If you have a plan to start a cardboard box making company, this article will give you all the necessary details like what is the equipment needed for a cardboard manufacturing business, how do you manufacture a cardboard box, and about licenses, etc.

Nowadays packaging industries are in demand and are growing day by day. And this is a very good opportunity for new businesses.

Ideas to start a Cardboard manufacturing business

This business doesn’t require any educational qualification but needs some investment, networking skills, and proper planning. You need to manufacture a large number of boxes to meet big orders from businesses. The term cardboard is nothing but a variety of heavy paper-like materials including paperboard, card stock, and corrugated fiberboard.

These cardboards will help the people in shifting both the domestic as well as industrial items like electronic goods, food items, automobiles, and also household goods, etc. safely from one place to the other. A corrugated box is strengthened and lightweight. These boxes are specially made of cardboard and will meet the corrugated box requirements. To avoid the damage of the items and hold them in place, there are partitions inside the box.

Equipment needed for Cardboard manufacturing business

  • Board cutter
  • Corrugators
  • Die-cutting machine
  • Eccentric slotter
  • Flexo printing machine
  • Generator set
  • Gluing machine
  • Pressing machine
  • Printing machine
  • Rotary cutting & creasing machine
  • Sheet pasting machine
  • Single face corrugating
  • stitching machine
  • Variable frequency drive

How Corrugated boxes are made?

The process of manufacturing boxes will include the following five operations.

  • Slitting and longitudinal cutting
  • Creasing
  • Slotting
  • Flap or corner-cutting
  • Stitching

Whenever the sheet passes through these five operations, then a box or container is ready to dispatch. At the same time, slitting and creasing operations be carried over a 4 bar rotary cutting and creasing machine. The trimmed and creased sheet is slotted and flap cut on a machine known as an eccentric slotted machine. Finally, it is either sewed over a stitching machine or glued manually.

Here is the detailed process of making cardboards

  • Tree trunks are stripped of their bark and then cut up into small chips
  • The chips are placed in a high-pressure tank where they are cooked in a sodium hydroxide liquid, along with several other compounds
  • The pressure got released after a few hours and the chips become soft fiber in the tank.
  • The chips are then placed into a machine of paper-making, containing wire structure used to mold the fiber chips into huge reels of paper
  • Fed this paper into heated rollers, to remove the moisture if any. Then roll the finished product and is ready to move it to the corrugating plant
  • Once the corrugating plant received the product, paper rolls are then divided by grade. If someone ordered for certain roll sizes then the next stage of the process will come into the picture
  • When the paper is dispatched and ready to be converted into cardboard, rolls are placed at one end of a corrugating machine
  • Some of these paper rolls will become the medium and some will become the lighter. The difference between the two is the width of the paper
  • A roll of medium and a roll of liner are combined and run through the machine. And the second part of the liner will add to another part of the machine called a bridge. Once a medium has been corrugated, then liners will combine to the medium at a later stage
  • The medium has been corrugated because of the electric rollers. This is when the correct amount of heat is applied to the liner
  • The corrugating rolls will be teeth-like ridges. When the heated paper proceeds through the rolls, the teeth created ridges, then the middle part of the cardboard will be formed.
  • This paper then travels toward the next set of rollers. Here, one layer of glue is applied carefully. After completion of applying the glue then the first layer of liner is attached to this glued side.
  • Now the liner and medium will proceeds together to the next stage, which reverses the sheet and attaches the final layer to the medium
  • This is the final stage where newly created cardboard will pass through a set of heated plates and which removes the glue
  • Cardboard is now completed when it reaches the end of the corrugating machine
  • Here is the stage that manufactures will cut the cardboard and will shape them into the requirements as per the orders

The cost to start a Cardboard manufacturing business

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How to start a Cardboard making business.
How to start a Cardboard making business.

The main cost will be on the cardboard making machine. If you want to take a semi-automatic, it will range to $13,000. It will cross if you pick fully automatic ones. This is a one-time investment for the business. Then the rest will be on raw material and labor & operator charges based on the business.

Here are a few segments which use corrugated Cardboard boxes

  • Food and beverage products
  • Electronic Goods
  • Household appliances
  • Personal and household care goods
  • Glassware and ceramics
  • Footwear
  • Paper products
  • Automobile components
  • Rubber & rubber products
  • Chemicals
  • Textile goods
  • Tobacco products
  • Other nondurable goods

Licenses and permits to start a Cardboard manufacturing business

If you are starting a business, there are several licenses or permits you may need.

Register Your Business

If you are legally responsible for a company, a corporation, you should register your business with your state authorities. If you form a general partnership, no need to register your business entity with the state.

Register Your Business Name

Your state or country authorities will verify whether your business names are registered with the state or not. Your business name will be registered with the state when you register an LLC stands for Limited Liability Company.

Before registering your business name with the state just check with others whether anyone already having the same name for their business or not. If you are planning to create a website for your business, select a unique business name so that no one will get confused with another company.

State Licenses and Permits

Your state will require you to have several different types of licenses and permits, depending on what kind of business you are starting, whether you have employees and if you are selling products or services.

Sales Tax Permit

If you are selling taxable products or services, you will need to apply for a seller’s permit in your state. If you are selling the products online then also you will need this permission.

Advantages of Cardboard boxes

  • Made from renewable resources
  • Save energy
  • Reusable
  • Easily disposable
  • Lightweight

Disadvantages of Cardboard boxes

  • Not for heavy products
  • May get deformed:
  • Not best for weatherproofing

The recycling process of a Cardboard

To recycle the cardboard first you want to know what is cardboard recycling and how to recycle the cardboard.

What is Cardboard recycling?

To save money on waste disposal costs, you can recycle recyclable materials like cardboard which is done by small and large scale businesses. The cardboard recycling process is nothing but the process of reusing the thick sheets or multilayered papers that have been used, discarded, or regarded as waste.

Recycling is good for us as it not only saves our environment from decomposition by reducing pollution but also conserves valuable resources and creates jobs.

There are 4 steps in the Cardboard recycling

  1. Collection
  2. Sorting
  3. Shredding and pulping
  4. Filtering, conterminal removal, and De-Inking
  5. Finishing for re-use
 1. Collection

The collection is the first step in recycling cardboard. The cardboard recycling businesses which will recycle the cardboard will collect them from designated collection points. Most of the collection points include trash bins, commercial outlets, stores, and scrap yards that generate cardboard waste. After collection, they are then measured and pulled them to recycling facilities, mostly paper mills.

Cardboards that are used for food packaging, waxed, and coated are mostly not accepted as they undergo different recycling processes.

2. Sorting

Once the cardboard arrives at the recycling center, they will separate the boxes as per the type. This is done by choosing the type of cardboard, with the two popular types such as boxboard and corrugated board. Identifying these two types of boxes is pretty straightforward. Boxboard boxes are small-sized and the boxes are non-coated. Examples of boxboard boxes would be food packaging and milk containers. Corrugated boxes are usually large and they are often used as containers for boxboard boxes. For instance, these would be used to store a collection of cereal boxes. Corrugated boxes are coated and will be occasionally exposed to the weather.

3. Shredding and pulping

The next step after sorting is shredding and then pulping follows. Shredding in nothing but breaking down the cardboard paper fibers into very small pieces. Once the material is finely cut into small pieces, it is combined with some water and chemicals to breakdown the paper fibers.

All this process together called pulping. After completing the pulping process, the pulped material is then mixed with new pulp, generally from small wood chips that finally helps in result to become solid substance and firmer.

4. Filtering, conterminal removal, and De-Inking

The pulp material is then taken through a filtering process to get rid of impurities such as strings, tape, or glue as well as all the foreign materials present. The pulp further goes into a chamber where plastics and metals staples are removed. Plastics will be on top while the heavy metal staples fall under the bottom after the elimination process.

The next process, de-inking, involves putting the pulp in a floatation device made up of chemicals that take away any form of dyes or ink via a series of filtering and screening. This step is also called the cleaning process as it cleans the pulp thoroughly to ensure it is ready for the final processing stage.

5. Finishing for re-use

At this stage, we are looking at pulp that is ready to be given the desired shape. Some paper materials are added, followed by drying. The material goes through the dryer-type machine, which will separate all the excess water and it gives the final shape in the drying process. This is called the liner board and it is ready to be used to create fresh boxes and other products.

Why recycle Cardboard?

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Cardboard.
Cardboard.

Recycling is good for our planet as it helps to conserve resources, create jobs, and reduces pollution from the production of new materials. Big businesses also recycle cardboard boxes as part of their corporate social responsibility programs and it also helps them to save money on waste disposal costs.

Many of us will buy the required items online so we have a lot of boxes to dispose of. There are several ways to dispose of these items like:

Re-use. If you have a lot of cardboard boxes at your home to dispose of, you can make fun toys for your kids. You can even use them as storage purposes. You can use the partition boxes as containers, to separate the different items and hold them at their place.

Pass them. If you are having big cardboard boxes, and you are not using them anymore. You can pass them to your family or friends in case they are planning to shift home. You can store the items that are not using often in small cardboard boxes.

Recycle. All those pieces of cardboard boxes that you are not able to re-use for any reason, you may send them to the local recycling center.

Advantages of recycling Cardboard boxes

  • Environmental conservation and protection
  • Reduce consumption of energy
  • Reduce air and water pollution
  • Fights global warming
  • Limit waste in landfills
  • Spreads environmental awareness
  • Make and save money

Disadvantages of the recycling Cardboard boxes

  • More pollution and energy consumption
  • Result in pollutants
  • Recycling isn’t always cost-effective
  • Require stricter and more stringent implementation
  • Good products are not guaranteed
  • Recycled products are always lesser quality
  • Generally ineffective

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