By CASEY NEILL
A HALLAM factory has produced the world’s strongest cardboard box.
The Rebul Packaging product has safely transported a two-tonne car from Australia to the US.
“We’ve been making crates as an alternative to wooden crates for many years now, and we’ve been supplying Holden in Melbourne for close to 10 years,” business owner Brad Huggett said.
“It was them who thought that our crates would be strong enough to actually ship their demo vehicles to the USA.
“They’d previously been getting wooden crates but they’d been costing them a fortune.”
Mr Huggett said his cardboard boxes measuring 5200 millimetres by 2000mm by 1800mm saved Holden $2500 per crate and a few thousand on air freight.
“I’ve been in the industry for over 10 years and I’ve never seen any kind of box with anything cardboard related anywhere near that strength,” he said.
“Nothing else comes close.
“Pretty sure it is a world first for the strongest cardboard box, but wouldn’t be far off the biggest, either.”
Mr Huggett said there wasn’t great demand for crates that size.
“But certainly it demonstrates the amount of strength that you can now get out of paper crates,” he said.
“It really opens up the world of packaging.”
He said art galleries and museums were a big growth area, and he had plans to expand Rebul Packaging overseas within the next 18 months.
“There’s no shortage of opportunities,” he said.
Mr Huggett came to Australia from Zimbabwe and started Rebul about nine years ago as a means to help his parents to join him.
A packaging engineer friend came up with a new box design and Mr Huggett went to South Africa and built the machinery, sent it to Australia and started making boxes.
“It gives the same strength as a wooden crate but in a design that’s lighter,” he said.
“It’s made from recycled materials and it’s recyclable.
“There are no fumigation issues in sending it overseas.”
