Blog: packing materials

Types of packing materials

Cardboard

Cardboard boxes are probably the best known and most used type of packaging. Boxes made of cardboard are available in many different shapes and sizes: from small boxes that are made to fit through the mailbox, to big moving boxes and pallet boxes. In addition to boxes, use is often made of (corrugated) cardboard on a roll. This kind of cardboard is often used to package products that have an unusual size. Moreover, cardboard is often used to separate different articles within a box, for example several bottles in one box.

Seal

The best known example of sealing material is plastic film. Stretch foil and shrink foil are often used to seal a plurality of articles. Stretch foil owes its name to its elasticity: the products that are sealed with stretch foil are tightly pressed to each other. Shrink foil gets heated when it is wrapped around the product, causing the foil to melt around the products. This process is also referred to as shrink sealing. Besides individual products, pallets are also often sealed before loaded into a truck.

Plastic bags

Apart from the conventional plastic bags, there are also many different types of plastic bags that have an easy closing mechanism. There are plastic bags with a zip or zipper, snap fastening, adhesive closure or drawstring. Pouches that can be sealed are often referred to as “baggies”. In addition to these various types of plastic bags, there are also isothermal pockets that are used to maintain a products temperature. Sometimes, for the packaging of relatively small and/or fragile products, so-called “foam sachets” or air cushions are used. These small bags look like bags made of bubble wrap, with the main difference that the bubbles are on the outside of the bag, so the products can be put easy into the bag, with the protection of regular bubble wrap.

Paper

Paper has many advantages as a package material: it’s easy, inexpensive and also environmentally friendly. There are many different types of wrapping paper as a package material:

• Bleached kraft is strong and versatile white paper which is suitable for almost all types of shipments.
• Crepe paper is very thin and is often used to separate and/or to pack extreme shapes easily and quickly. Although this type of paper is also suitable as box stuffing, this is hardly done because it is relative expensive.
• Natron kraft is the well-known traditional brown packing paper and is still frequently used to pack packets because of its robustness.
• Grey paper is the best known form of wrapping paper and is often used to pack packages in an easy, fast and inexpensive way. In addition to this, grey paper is also regularly used as stuffing material.
• Brown paper is basically the same as grey paper, except that it is a lot more robust and has a different color.
• Oil paper is a kind of paper that has been impregnated with paraffin natron kraft, making it waterproof. Oil paper is often used to package products which are sensitive to corrosion.
• Courant paper is, as the name suggests, similar to newsprint. This kind of arborbent printing paper is often used to package fragile products and fresh products in a safe, hygienic and inexpensive way.

Stuffing materials

Sometimes it is not possible to find a box that is small enough to pack the article(s), but it is also not desired that the product are lying loosely in the box and start moving during transport. In this case, there is often chosen to use stuffing material to fill the rest of the cardboard box and to minimize the chance of damaging the products. Below are the most commonly used filling materials set put:

• Foam-in-bag is a practical and compact foam protection that is precisely tailored. Foam-in-bag is a closed pocket that automatically inflates. After a product is placed on the inflated bag, it becomes a solid shape, the precise shape of the object that is placed on top of it. Some variants of foam-in-bags work with heat, so that the bag hardens in the desired shape within fifteen seconds. Foam-in-bag is a luxurious packaging method and is often used for expensive and fragile products.
• Filled air is the famous plastic are bags or air cushions. These air bags have a buffering and protective function and can be used quickly and easily.
• Styrofoam is a very well-known kind of stuffing. Many products, for example televisions, are packaged with styrofoam wrapped around the corners or borders to protect it. Styrofoam, or polystyrene, is a light and durable stuffing material.
• Foam chips or foam peanuts, are perhaps the best known form of loose stuffing material. The eight-shaped foam chips are being produced in a biodegradable way more often and are therefore more environmentally friendly than they used to be.
• Wood wool or excelsior is also a loose filling material, but it is more environmentally friendly than most other forms. Besides this, is wood wool an economical and decorative stuffing material and is often used to stuff luxury products, for example wine boxes.
• Paper wool is the cheaper version of wood wool. Like the wooden version, this material is also environmentally friendly, but is less luxurious.
• Paper fiber or fiber board, are zigzag folded paper strips. These are recyclable and environmentally friendly.
• Silica gel grains are grains that can often be found in small bags in shoe boxes. These granules have a high degree of moisture absorption, making them a popular item to put in boxes that need to travel long distances.

Bubble wrap

Bubble wrap is a foil that is often wrapped around fragile products for protection. Because bubble wrap foil can be reused often, it is a sustainable packing material, as long as you don’t pop the bubbles of course.

Foam foil

Foam wrap is just like bubble wrap a shockproof and scratch-resistant coating that is often put on or around fragile products and delicate surfaces, such as mirrors, before they are packed in boxes. Foam foil is elastic, allowing it to be wrapped around any shape, making it a popular packaging material.

Need packing materials?

If you need packing materials for your shipment, HST Groep can be of service. HST has a wide range of packaging products and materials, including tape, various types of foil, stickers, pallets and pallet boxes for different pallet sizes. For more information about HST’s various packaging materials, please contact us.