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Cardboard boxes are industrially prefabricated boxes, which are primarily used for packaging commercial goods or storing goods and materials. In their post-primary life stage they are popularly variously employed as cheap material for the construction of a range of projects, among them being science experiments, children's toys, Louis costumes and insulative lining.
Eartheasy recommends "the simple, basic, unglamorous, glorious cardboard box" as a present for young children, citing as its merits the fact that it doesn't matter if it breaks or wears out. Living in a cardboard box is stereotypically associated with homelessness. However, in 2005 Melbourne architect Peter Ryan designed a house composed largely of cardboard.
History
The first commercial cardboard box was produced in England in 1817. The first cardboard box manufactured in the United States was made in 1895. By 1900, wooden crates and boxes were being replaced by corrugated paper shipping cartons. The advent of flaked cereals increased the use of cardboard boxes. The first to use cardboard boxes as cereal cartons were the Kellogg brothers.
Cardboard box manufacture in France
The Musée du Cartonnage et de l'Imprimerie (Museum of the Cardboard Box) in Valréas, France traces the history of cardboard box making in the region. Cardboard boxes have been used there since 1840 for transporting the Bombyx mori moth and its eggs from Japan to Europe by silk manufacturers, and for more than a century the manufacture of cardboard boxes was a major industry in the area.
Cardboard boxes and children
A common cliche is that, if presented with a large and expensive new toy, a child will quickly become bored with the toy and play with the box instead. Although this is usually said somewhat jokingly, children certainly enjoy playing with boxes, using their imagination to portray the box as an infinite variety of objects. One example of this from popular culture is Calvin of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, who often used a cardboard box for imaginative purposes from a "transmogrifier" to a time machine.
So prevalent is the cardoard box's reputation as a plaything that in 2005 a cardboard box was added to the National Toy Hall of Fame, one of very few non-brand-specific toys to be honoured with inclusion. As a result, a toy "house" (actually a log cabin) made from a large cardboard box was added to the Hall, housed at the Strong - National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.
References
Further reading
- — a list of simple science experiments that can be performed using a cardboard box
- — more uses for cardboard boxes, including uses as an oven, composter, armchair, and house
- — several Halloween costumes that can be made with cardboard boxes and paint
- — six projects using cardboard boxes as children's playthings
- — A guide detailing how best to package items that need to be shipped. Includes technical information about using cardboard (corrugated) boxes.
See also
- The Adventure of the Cardboard Box (a Sherlock Holmes story)
- Cardboard Box (Metal Gear) The humorous use of a cardboard inside the Metal Gear Saga.
"Cardboard box"