Packaging and Paper & Board

What is packaging and board?

Paperboard is a general term describing heavyweight grades of paper primarily used for manufacturing corrugated shipping containers,

paper boxes, folding cartons, and many other types of packaging for consumer and industrial products. Paperboard provides protective packaging for goods at a relatively low cost. It is lightweight yet strong. Paperboard can also be found in book covers, milk cartons, insulation materials, and a wide range of other products. Paperboard, also know simply as board, is classified into three major product segments: containerboard, boxboard (or cartonboard), and other paperboard.

Containerboard

Containerboard is the largest single category of paperboard and includes three major products: linerboard, corrugating medium, and chip and filler boards. Most of the containerboard produced is used to make corrugated shipping containers. Linerboard and corrugating medium are combined to make corrugated packaging materials for containers and boxes. Containerboard is also used for point-of-purchase displays and free-standing bins seen in supermarkets and retail stores. Containerboard is made from a variety of furnishes. The four main categories are: Kraft linerboard, which contains a majority of unbleached kraft pulp in its furnish; Kraft-top linerboard, which contains a majority of recovered paper in its furnish, but has a top layer of unbleached kraft pulp; Recycled (or test) linerboard, which is made exclusively from recovered paper; Semichemical corrugating medium(fluting), which contains a majority of semichemical wood pulp in its furnish; and recycled corrugating medium, which is made exclusively from recovered paper. Boxboard

Boxboard (or cartonboard) is used in the manufacture of folding cartons, milk cartons, setup boxes, paper cups and plates, and other packaging products. Boxboard for folding cartons is made from either bleached or unbleached solid kraft board, or it can be made from 100% recycled board. Other paperboard

The "Other paperboard" category is composed of a wide variety of unbleached kraft of recycled grades used in the manufacture of various industrial converted products.

Printing & Writing Papers

What are printing and writing papers?

The printing/writing paper group includes the four major categories of uncoated groundwood (also known as wood-containing, groundwood specialties or mechanical), coated groundwood (wood-containing or coated mechanical), uncoated freesheet (or uncoated woodfree), and coated freesheet (or coated woodfree). Uncoated groundwood

Uncoated groundwood papers are a step up from newsprint in both quality and price, with higher brightness levels and smoother surfaces. Papermaking advances, such as improved forming, have led to improved quality and have added to the variety of grades and sub-grades available to customers.

As a result, papermakers have marketed them as a cost-effective alternative to lower-priced commodity newsprint grades and to higher-priced coated groundwood and uncoated freesheet grades. The main end uses for uncoated groundwood papers are preprinted newspaper inserts and direct mail flyers, catalogs, Sunday newspaper magazines, paperback books, telephone directories, and business forms.

Uncoate freesheet

Uncoated freesheet papers make up the largest segment of the printing/writing paper sector in terms of tonnage, and play a significant day-to-day role in modern society. They are used for letters and memos, in photocopiers and laser printers, and for books, manuals, computer forms, tablets, envelopes, and greeting cards.

Coated papers-groundwood and freesheet

Newsprint

What is newsprint ?

Newsprint is an uncoated paper made from mechanical woodpulp, and , in increasing amounts, recovered fiber from old newpapers (onp) and old magazines. The raw material for the mechanical ( or groundwood ) woodpuop is generally woodchips.

The furnish, before the 1970s, was traditionally 80% groundwood pulp and 20% sulfite pulp. In that ecade it started moving over to the new generation of mechanical pulps plus kraft pulp. Nowadays, the furnish increasingly contains some deinked pulp, which is sometimes repuired by legislation. Nowadays, newsprint can be made from 100% recovered fiber. The grade rates as a low-quality, low-priced paper, but it makes up roughly 15% of all paper and paperboard made in North America. The other large markets are Western Europe, especially Scandinavia, and Asia, in cluding Japan . most of the newsprint made in Europe is consumed domestically. The U.S. market is basically insulated, supplied chiefly by U.S. and Canadian mills.. Japan is also an insulated market, although Japanese companies maintain significant equity investments in North America.

What are the main uses of newsprint?

In developed countries, the main use for newsprint is newspapers, with smaller amounts being used for magazines, inserts, comics and general commercial printing. Newsprint represents about 25% of the cost of newspaper production. Advertising provides the basic financial support for newspapers, so their pagination varies with economic activity.

In poor countries, newsprint serves as a cheap general purpose printing paper, e.g., for exercise books. Newsprint was a mature market until, toward the end of the 1970s, demand received a boost from : the ability of newspapers to carry inserts; the widespread creation of free local newspapers and subsequently, the development of improved newsprint for color advertising.

According to one official definition, the category newsprint is uncoated paper used for the printing of newspapers, of which not less than 65% by weight of the total fiber content consists of woodfiber obtained by mechanical processes. How is newsprint produced?

Most newsprint is now made on twin-wire paper machines, which produce better sheet characteristics than newsprint produced on traditional fourdriniers. After that, standard newsprint is printed by offset and letterpress, but flexography is increasingly an option.

U.S. newsprint is usually produced in a standard basis weight of 30lb but is available in standard basis weights as low as 24lb and as high as 35lb. Certain grades of newsprint, such as rotonews or improved newsprint , are of lighter or heavier basis weight and opacity. Higher-brightness newsprint may become classified as a mechanical/groundwood specialities grade and used for telephone directories or other commercial printing. Newsprint in other parts of the world is commonly found in the following grammages:40, 45, 48.8, 52 g/m_. with ISObrightness ranging from 56-66%. Grammage has progressively declined from 52 g/m_ since the 1970s.