Are Corrugated Shipping Crates Really as Strong as Traditional Wooden Ones?

If you’ve seen corrugated crates, you may have wondered if they’re as sturdy and protective as conventional wooden versions. Spoiler alert: the answer is yes! But they also offer so many other advantages that they’re putting old-fashioned wood crating in the rear-view mirror. Traditional wood crating has been around for literally hundreds of years. But you’ll be ready to say goodbye to it once you see how much better wood-free corrugated crates perform.

Corrugated Crates Provide Outstanding Strength and Protection

Shipping expensive fine art, aeronautical parts, and medical equipment requires better-than-average protection. You may be surprised to learn that corrugated shipping crates provide that at the highest level—better in many cases than wood crating.

Triple wall design for superior impact protection

You’ve no doubt used corrugated cardboard boxes before. They’re pretty strong compared to flat coated cardboard like you find with cereal and cracker boxes. Corrugated crating, with its carefully engineered five-layer structure, is a bit like those shipping boxes taken to the next level.

It uses a triple wall design that gives you extra cushioning from impact and looks like this:

• Outer Liner — Kraft linerboard, weather-resistant exterior face
• C-Flute Medium — 11/64" corrugated, primary crush & shock resistance
• Middle Liner — Internal linerboard separator between flute layers
• B-Flute Medium — 3/32" corrugated, stacking strength & puncture resistance
• Inner Liner — Interior face; smooth, product-safe, no-scratch surface

Outstanding strength specifications

How does it test next to wood crating? It can handle everything you pack in wood and more. Check out these specs:

• Wall strength (stacking): Up to 1,100 lb/ft²
• Edge Crush Test (ECT): Up to 90 ECT (triple-wall)
• Burst strength (Mullen): Up to 1,200 PSI
• Max payload capacity: Up to 25,000 lb (engineered)

Protection from vibration during transit

Even better, it cushions items in shipment from vibration damage. This safeguards one-of-a-kind museum art and sensitive instrumentation, with the latter not requiring recalibration at its destination—another time savings.

Wood-Free Crating Is Safer and More Efficient

Lighter and quicker to pack

Users love corrugated cardboard crates because they weigh about a third of what wood crates do. This makes them easier to pack and move, reducing time and labor. You save money on shipping, too, which is crucial these days as rising fuel prices and shortages make transporting goods increasingly more costly.

These crates are custom-sized based on the contents’ exact dimensions for a precise fit. Both the top and the bottom lid are telescoping and cover all four sides of the crate.

When not in use, wood-free crating folds flat for storage or re-use. This kind of crating is sturdy enough that you can get multiple uses out of it before it reaches the end of its lifespan.

Recyclable for easy disposal

When you no longer need corrugated crates, they are fully recyclable. Disposal of wood crating, on the other hand, is a serious problem. It can’t be recycled, so it often ends up in a landfill. If it’s been treated to resist pesticides and rot, it cannot be burned either (which isn’t a great solution for air quality in the first place). Alternatively, corrugated crates are ISPM-15 exempt, so no treatment is required, even for international shipping.

No dangerous hardware necessary

Assembling a corrugated, wood-free shipping crate requires no nails or screws, nor does it require tools. This is another reason they’re so efficient at packing and unloading. Putting a wood-free crate together takes only about 15 minutes, compared to about 1.5 hours for traditional wood crating.

The lack of hardware and splinters makes this crating safer for workers who handle it. And it protects your valuable items from scratches during transit. This is of particular concern for museum and gallery employees who often spend hours devising wax or plastic covers for wood crate internal hardware. For even further protection, a vapor corrosion inhibitor (VCI) lining is available upon request: Armor VCI Orbital Wrap.

When it’s time to load wood-free crating on a pallet, the task is simple. Again, no hardware is involved. Instead, reusable strapping gets the job done quickly and easily.

You Get Sustainability with Corrugated Crating

Being able to recycle corrugated cardboard shipping crates isn’t just a convenience. Our landfills are bursting with packaging refuse that takes anywhere from decades to centuries to break down. When chemically treated wood crating, plastic, and foam break down, they leach harmful compounds into the earth. And plastics degrade into microplastics (aka nanoplastics), which are associated with all kinds of disease in wild animals, animals in the food chain, and humans.

Wood-free crating is made like other sustainable packing products, with a lower impact on the planet. And because it’s made from recycled materials, there’s no worry about depleting the earth’s resources, which is an unfortunate concern with conventional wood crating.

Sustainable packaging has become a hot issue in many US states, as well as in European Union nations and countries worldwide. New regulations are being phased in around the world, requiring sustainable packaging to replace old-fashioned, less eco-friendly options. Your business can get ahead of the curve by adopting sustainable corrugated cardboard crating, along with sustainable kraft paper packaging solutions like:

• Product wrap
• Void fill
• Protective mailers
• Pallet wrap

Corrugated vs. Traditional Wood Crating: A Quick Comparison

Try HexcelCrate™ for Your Valuable Shipments

Want to try wood-free crating for your shipments? HexcelCrate™ is a state-of-the-art product that can be used by businesses of all sizes, across all industries.

Let our team of experts at HexcelPack customize corrugated crating for your valuable items. Reach out today to learn more or place an order.