Ropak Packaging, producer of rigid plastic shipping containers in North America and member of the LINPAC Group was awarded US Patent on 22 June 2010 for its innovative container sidewall strengthening system – dubbed the ‘corner groove product feature’.
Ropak’s corner groove product feature includes vertical grooves and horizontal reinforcing ribs, which together increase the load the containers can bear without increasing their weight. The innovative features mean the containers are able to resist buckling under downward forces that would normally make them collapse.
If maintaining stack strength is the goal, then the corner groove feature allows the wall thickness of the container to be reduced, cutting the amount of source material used in manufacture. An added bonus of reducing the wall thickness is that the nesting height in turn is also reduced – resulting in more empty containers per pallet and a consequent reduction in the number of trucks required to transport them.
The corner groove feature adds to Ropak’s impressive line-up of source-reduced containers. The lightweighting results in fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, less energy required in manufacture and transport, and minimises waste.