U-Pack’s world beating new Cortec-Line™ system produces lighter and stronger corrugated board than conventional processes. It does so by using new technology and ground breaking new patented systems.

The new product made on the Cortec-line is called eviroboardTM and incorporates the patented V-Strong FluteTM design and offers significant cost savings over traditional corrugated board without loss of quality.

EviroboardTM also has substantially less impact on the environment.

 


An example of the benefits of using the eviroboardTM can be seen in the tray figured to the right:

The cardboard tray illustrated would be constructed from eviroboardTM which has been strip lined on one side with a full liner the other side. Strip lining can reduce the amount of paper used by up to 60%.

This is just one of the reasons eviroboardTM packaging products cost as much as 40% less than standard corrugated board products.
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Corrugated Board Production and its Green Credentials
There are approximately 51 Manufacturers of Corrugated Board in England and Wales and around 15 Paper Mills supplying those manufacturers with corrugated quality paper. Paper is shipped in reel form to the manufacturers of Corrugated Board who convert it and in turn ship sheets of Corrugated Board to Sheet Plant Operators (SPO’s) or Sheet Convertors of which there are around 700 in England and Wales,

Paper rolls are a solid mass and can be transported very efficiently, where as corrugated board contains 80% air. On average 20-30 wooden pallets are shipped with every 40 foot truck load of corrugated board sheets. A similar number of pallets leave the SPO to the end user customer. The shipment of pallets are 100% non productive, wasteful and expensive,

Advantages of V-Strong Flute™
The new design and flute folding process means that lighter papers can be employed in the construction of the board without loss of strength.
In fact there has been a substantial increase in strength, including crush strength and spine strength even with 20% less paper weight used to manufacture the flutes.
With the new design of the V-Strong Flute™ & the Cortec-Line’s method of manufacture, board can now be constructed with a full face paper liner one side and strip liners the other side with little if any any loss of rigidity.
Strip liners will reduce even further the amount of paper used in eviroboardTM - strip lining is not possible on traditional corrugators.

New machine design
The 'Cortec-Line™' system incorporates a revolutionary new design of machine to make the new corrugated board called eviroboard.
The heart of the new design is in the way in which the Cortec machine creates the fluting shape of the corrugated board. A simple but very effective mechanism has been developed to fold the fluting paper into the new V shape before the glue is applied to the tips of the flutes to bond flutes to liner papers. Traditional Corrugating Machines press the paper into the flute shape using very high forces between pressing rollers and simultaneously employ high temperatures to penetrate the paper at the pressing stage in order to suppress paper spring memory. It is not possible for a traditional corrugating machine design to create anything other than a sinusoidal flute shape.

Strip lining
The Pizza Disc pictured in Figure 2, is constructed from eviroboard produced on the Cortec-Line system and has been strip lined.  Clay Coated papers are used to produce the corrugated board which the Pizza Disc is made from, Clay Coated paper has a very good moisture resistance quality and is food-safe and preferred by customers.

Figure 2.
New Pizza Disc Design.
                        
  Strip liner on underside, full liner on the pizza contact side