A carton is a box or container usually made of liquid packaging board, paperboard and sometimes of corrugated fiberboard. Many types of cartons are used in packaging. Sometimes a carton is also called a box.

A carton is a type of packaging typically made from paperboard that is suitable for food, pharmaceuticals, hardware, and many other types of products.^[1] Folding cartons are usually combined into a tube at the manufacturer and shipped flat (knocked down) to the packager. Tray styles have a solid bottom and are often shipped as flat blanks and assembled by the packager. Some also are self-erecting. High-speed equipment is available to set up, load, and close the cartons.

Egg cartons or trays are designed to protect whole eggs while in transit. Traditionally, these have been made of molded pulp. This uses recycled newsprint which is molded into a shape which protects the eggs. More recently, egg cartons have also been made from expanded polystyrene and PET.

Cartons for liquids can be fabricated from laminates of liquid packaging board, foil, and polyethylene. Most are based on either Tetra Pak or SIG Combibloc systems.^{[citation needed]} One option is to have the printed laminate supplied on a roll. The carton is cut, scored, and formed at the packager. A second option is to have the pre-assembled tubes delivered to the packaging plant for completion and filling. These are suited for aseptic processing and are used for milk, soup, juice, etc. Paperboard-based cartons are lighter compared to a similarly sized steel can, but are harder to recycle. Some open-loop recycling operations pelletize or flatten ground-up cartons for use in building materials; closed-loop recycling is possible by separating the layers before processing, though some recyclers only recycle the cardboard fibers.^[2]

Perga cartons entered production in 1932 as a leak-proof can during World War I. Jagenberg Werke AG, in Düsseldorf, Germany, patented the design. The carton had a ribbed texture and paper sleeves covered in paraffin material, which provided a seamed structure from base to lid. Most cartons had a capacity of 200 mL. Development of the carton slowed during World War II, but the design would see a revival within European markets in the 1960s.

Gable top cartons are often used for liquid products such as milk, juice, etc. These use polyethylene-coated paperboard^[3] or other liquid packaging board and sometimes a foil laminate. Most are opened by pushing open the gables at the top back and pulling the top (spout) out. Some have fitments to assist in opening and eating the contents.^[4][5][6][7]

Cuboid waxed paperboard beverage, a formed waxed paperboard plug crimped and sealed, preceded gabled polyethylene-coated paperboard cartons.^[8] Waxed paper straws were used to drink.^[9] Borden distributed milk in this way.^{[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][excessive citations]}

Robert Gair was a Brooklyn printer and paper-bag maker during the 1870s. While he was printing an order of seed bags, a metal rule normally used to crease bags shifted in position and cut the bag. Gair concluded that cutting and creasing paperboard in one operation would have advantages; the first automatically made carton, now referred to as "semi-flexible packaging", was created.^[21]

Folded carton

In 1817, the first commercial cardboard box production began in England.^[21] In 1879, Robert Gair, in Brooklyn, New York, operated a factory that die-ruled, cut, and scored paperboard into a single impression of a folded carton.^[21] By 1896, the National Biscuit Company was the first to use cartons to package crackers.^[22]

During the first decade of the 1900s, G. W. Maxwell developed the first paper milk carton.^[5]

Milk carton

In 1908, Dr. Winslow, of Seattle, Washington, described paper milk containers that were commercially sold in San Francisco and Los Angeles as early as 1906.^[8][23] The inventor of this carton was G.W. Maxwell.^[8] Later, in 1915 John Van Wormer of Toledo, Ohio, received the a patent for the gable-topped, wax-coated, "paper bottle," a folded blank box for holding milk, calling it the "Pure-Pak."^[24] The milk carton could be folded, glued, filled with milk, and sealed at a dairy farm.^[25] In 1953, Seok-kyun Shin introduced the gable-topped milk carton to Korea.^[26] In the 1960s, Mario Lepore, a Detroit engineer designed a machine to fold and seal a gable top paper carton.^{[citation needed]}

In 1957 paper milk carton company Kieckhefer Container Co. merged with the Weyerhauser Timber Company of Tacoma, Washington.^{[citation needed]}

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.

Tetrahedrons and other shapes are available. Cartons with a hexagonal or octagonal cross sections are sometimes used for specialty items.

Cartons can be made from many materials: paperboard, duplex, white kraft, recycled and many more various plastics, or a composite. Some are "food grade" for direct contact with foods. 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.

In art history, the carton (pronounced the French way) was a drawing on heavy pasteboard or paperboard, 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.

In the 1980s, milk cartons in the United States often printed photos of missing children with the hope that someone would recognize the photograph and provide information to police.

Many milk cartons also included advertisements and sponsors. These images and sponsors ranged from DVDs, Cereal, Cartoons, Frozen Dinners, and Albums.^[27]

Carton-pierre was a material used for the making of raised ornaments for wall and ceiling decoration. It is composed of the pulp of paper mixed with whiting (ground calcium carbonate) and glue, this being forced into plaster moulds backed with paper, and then removed to a drying room to harden. It is much stronger and lighter than common plaster-of-Paris ornaments, and is not so liable to chip or break if struck with anything.

There's a plethora of beverages and snacks found within carton-packaging. This includes milk, juices, egg whites, coffee, protein shakes, water, and even snacks like Goldfish and Whoppers.^[28]

• Corrugated box
• Tetra Pak
• Elopak

• Yam, K.L., "Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology", John Wiley & Sons, 2009, ISBN 978-0-470-08704-6
• ^[1]
• The Paper Beverage Carton: Past and Future. 1 July 2002, https://www.ift.org/news-and-publications/food-technology-magazine/issues/2002/july/features/the-paper-beverage-carton-past-and-future.^[2]
• ^[3]
• ^[4]
• ^[5]

• How cartons are made, How Paper Cartons Are Made