Glossary
The vocabulary, without the mystique
Every trade builds a private language, and every private language eventually gets used as leverage. Here is ours, in plain terms — enough to hold your own with a broker and to notice when one is being vague at you.
36 termsA–ZPlain English
The five that matter most: ECT predicts stacking strength better than wall count. OCC is what a box becomes at end of life. Tri-wall is three-ply board and the industry workhorse. Knocked down means shipped flat, which is roughly four times cheaper. Prohibitives are the contaminants that get a bale rejected.
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B
- Bale
- A compressed, banded block of recovered corrugated, typically 1,100–1,400 lb. Mills buy fiber by the bale-load; density affects the price they pay.
- Basis weight
- The weight of paper per unit area, historically pounds per 1,000 square feet. Higher basis weight liner generally means a stronger board.
- Bulk bin
- Generic term for a pallet-sized container. Covers corrugated gaylord boxes and rigid plastic bins alike.
- Burst strength
- The pressure a board withstands before rupturing, measured by a Mullen test. Relevant to puncture resistance, less predictive of stacking than ECT.
C
- Corner board
- An L-shaped fiber or plastic profile placed on a box corner under banding to spread strap pressure and protect the corner.
- Corrugator
- The machine — and by extension the plant — that glues fluted medium between liners to make corrugated board.
- Creep
- The gradual deformation of corrugated under sustained load. A box holding weight for six months carries roughly 60% of its short-term rating.
D
- Double-sorted OCC (#12)
- A premium grade of recovered corrugated: clean, sorted, under 2% prohibitives, no other paper types mixed in.
E
- ECT
- Edge Crush Test. Pounds per linear inch a board edge withstands before buckling. The best single predictor of stacking performance.
F
- Flute
- The wavy medium between liners. Its arch geometry is what gives corrugated its strength-to-weight ratio.
G
- Gaylord box
- A pallet-sized bulk corrugated container, usually 48" × 40" footprint. Named after the Gaylord Container Company; now a generic term.
- GMA pallet
- The Grocery Manufacturers Association standard pallet, 48" × 40". The reason the standard gaylord box footprint is what it is.
- Grade (box)
- A condition classification for used boxes. 1A new, A one clean use, B up to two repairs, C multiple repairs, then scrap.
H
- Hoop stress
- Circumferential stress in a container wall under internal pressure. Octagon bins distribute it; square boxes concentrate it in corners.
I
- IBC tote
- Intermediate Bulk Container. A 275 or 330 gallon caged plastic vessel for liquids. Not a competitor to corrugated for dry solids.
K
- Knocked down (KD)
- Shipped flat rather than assembled. Roughly four times more boxes per trailer, which is why almost all used inventory ships this way.
L
- Liner
- The flat facing sheets on either side of the fluted medium.
M
- McKee formula
- An engineering estimate of box compression strength derived from ECT, board thickness and box perimeter.
- Medium
- The fluted inner layer of corrugated board.
O
- OCC
- Old Corrugated Containers. The recovered-fiber commodity grade that used boxes become at end of life.
- Octabin / octagon bin
- An eight-sided bulk container. Better under vibration and with free-flowing solids than a square box.
- One-way box
- A container intended for a single trip, priced accordingly. Often Grade C.
- Overhang
- Box extending past the pallet edge. One inch can cost 20% of stacking strength because the corners lose support.
P
- Pallet cap
- A corrugated cover placed over a loaded pallet or box to protect the top and enable stacking.
- Prohibitives
- Non-fiber contaminants in a bale — plastic, metal, wax, food residue. Mills specify maximum percentages by grade.
R
- Reconditioning
- Inspecting, cleaning and repairing a used box so it can re-enter service at a defined grade.
- Regrind
- Plastic scrap ground into flake for reprocessing. One of the highest-volume materials shipped in gaylord boxes on the Gulf Coast.
- Repulping
- Breaking a bale down in water at the mill to recover fiber. Corrugated fiber survives roughly 5–7 cycles.
S
- Scrap
- A box that is no longer viable as a container. Still valuable — as fiber, by the ton.
- Self-standing
- A box that holds its own shape empty. The first and fastest test of whether a box is still usable.
- Sleeve
- A four-sided corrugated body without top or bottom, used with a separate cap and base.
T
- Tare weight
- The weight of the empty container. Matters when your load is sold by net weight.
- Telescoping lid
- A lid that fits down over the outside of the box walls rather than sitting inside them.
- Tide line
- A wavy discoloured band showing a box stood in water. Permanent strength loss even after drying.
- Tri-wall
- Three-ply corrugated board. The most common construction for bulk boxes and the default for most industrial applications.
W
- Wall count
- The number of fluted layers. 2-wall through 5-wall in common use.