![8205Plastic containers 03](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/8205Plastic_containers_03.jpg)
A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage,
packaging
Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a co ...
, and
transportation
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...
, including
shipping
Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting Commodity, commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it h ...
.
Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term is most frequently applied to devices made from materials that are
durable
Durability is the ability of a physical product to remain functional, without requiring excessive maintenance or repair, when faced with the challenges of normal operation over its design lifetime. There are several measures of durability in use, ...
and are often partly or completely
rigid.
A container can also be considered as a basic
tool
A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates ba ...
, consisting of any device creating a partially or fully enclosed space that can be used to contain, store, and transport objects or materials.
History
Humans have used containers for at least 100,000 years, and possibly for millions of years.
[Clive Gamble, ''Origins and Revolutions: Human Identity in Earliest Prehistory'' (2007), p. 204.] The first containers were probably invented for storing
food
Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...
,
allowing early humans to preserve more of their food for a longer time, to carry it more easily, and also to protect it from other animals. The development of
food storage container
Food storage containers are widespread in use throughout the world and have probably been in use since the first human civilizations.
Early civilizations
In early civilizations cereal grains such as maize, wheat, barley etc. were stored in large ...
s was "of immense importance to the evolving human populations", and "was a totally innovative behavior" not seen in other primates. The earliest containers were probably objects found in nature such as hollow
gourd
Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly ''Cucurbita'' and ''Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earli ...
s, of which primitive examples have been found in cultures such as those of the
Tharu people
The Tharu people are an ethnic group indigenous to the Terai in southern Nepal and northern India. They speak Tharu languages. They are recognized as an official nationality by the Government of Nepal. In the Indian Terai, they live foremost i ...
, and
native Hawaiian
Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaii ...
people. These were followed by woven
basket
A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehai ...
s, carved
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
, and
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
.
Containers thereafter continued to develop along with related advances in human
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
, and with the development of new materials and new means of manufacture.
Early glass bottles were produced by the
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
ns; specimens of Phoenician
translucent
In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions a ...
and transparent glass bottles have been found in
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
and
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the So ...
generally varying in length from three to six inches. These Phoenician examples from the first millennium
BC were thought to have been used to contain
perfume
Perfume (, ; french: parfum) is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Th ...
. The
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
learned glass-making from the Phoenicians and produced many extant examples of fine glass bottles, mostly relatively small. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, sizes for retail containers such as glass bottles had become standardized for their markets.
[Warren Belasco, Roger Horowitz, ''Food Chains: From Farmyard to Shopping Cart'', pp. 98–99.]
In 1810, Frenchman
Philippe de Girard
Philippe Henri de Girard (February 1, 1775 – August 26, 1845aged 70) was a French engineer and inventor of the first flax spinning frame in 1810, and the person after whom the town of Żyrardów in Poland was named. He was also the uncredited in ...
came to London and used British merchant
Peter Durand
Peter Durand (21 October 1766 – 23 July 1822) was an English merchant who is widely credited with receiving the first patent for the idea of preserving food using tin cans. The patent (No 3372) was granted on August 25, 1810, by King George III ...
as an agent to patent his own idea for a process for making
tin can
A steel can, tin can, tin (especially in British English, Australian English, Canadian English and South African English),
steel packaging, or can is a container for the distribution or storage of goods, made of thin metal. Many cans re ...
s. The canning concept was based on experimental
food preservation
Food preservation includes processes that make food more resistant to microorganism growth and slow the oxidation of fats. This slows down the decomposition and rancidification process. Food preservation may also include processes that inhibit ...
work in glass containers the year before by the French inventor
Nicholas Appert
Nicolas Appert (17 November 1749 – 1 June 1841) was the French inventor of airtight food preservation. Appert, known as the "List of persons considered father or mother of a field, father of Food Science", was a confectioner. Appert described ...
. Durand did not pursue food canning, but, in 1812, sold his patent to two Englishmen,
Bryan Donkin
Bryan Donkin FRS FRAS
(22 March 1768 – 27 February 1855) developed the first paper making machine and created the world's first commercial canning factory. These were the basis for large industries that continue to flourish today. Bryan Do ...
and
John Hall John Hall may refer to:
Academics
* John Hall (NYU President) (fl. c. 1890), American academic
* John A. Hall (born 1949), sociology professor at McGill University, Montreal
* John F. Hall (born 1951), professor of classics at Brigham Young Unive ...
, who refined the process and product, and set up the world's first commercial canning factory on Southwark Park Road, London. By 1813 they were producing their first tin canned goods for the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
.
For transportation of goods on a larger scale, larger containers remained a problem, as customs officials inspecting imports had to deal with a lack of standardization in this field, and because predominantly wooden containers in use well into the twentieth century were prone to leaking or breaking.
The standardized steel
shipping container
A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context of ...
was developed in the 1950s, and quickly became ubiquitous for the large-scale transportation of commercial goods.
Towards the end of the Twentieth century, the introduction of
computer-aided design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
made it possible to design highly specialized containers and container arrangements, and also to make form-fitting labels for containers of unusual shapes.
[Geoff A. Giles, ''Design and Technology of Packaging Decoration for the Consumer Market'' (2000), p. 82: "Container designers also found that shrink sleeves gave them new-found freedom to design containers that until then had been viewed as impossible to decorate".]
Modern characteristics
A number of considerations go into the design of modern containers:
Variety
Practical examples of containers are listed below.
*
Ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
cylindrical vessels including:
** Ancient vessels, including
Amphora
An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...
s,
Kvevri
Kvevri or Qvevri ( ka, ქვევრი ) - also known as Tchuri ( ka, ჭური) in Western Georgia - are large earthenware vessels used for the fermentation, storage and ageing of traditional Georgian wine. Resembling large, egg-shaped ...
,
Pithos
Pithos (, grc-gre, πίθος, plural: ' ) is the Greek name of a large storage container. The term in English is applied to such containers used among the civilizations that bordered the Mediterranean Sea in the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and ...
, and
Dolium A dolium (plural: dolia) is a large earthenware vase or vessel used in ancient Roman times for storage or transportation of goods.
They are similar to kvevri, large Georgian vessels used to ferment wine.
Description
The dolium was a very large ...
**
Bottle
A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass, plastic or aluminium) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids. Its mouth, at the bottling line, can be sealed with an internal stopp ...
s, similar to a jar in being traditionally symmetrical about the axis perpendicular to its base and made of glass
**
Jar
A jar is a rigid, cylindrical or slightly conical container, typically made of glass, ceramic, or plastic, with a wide mouth or opening that can be closed with a lid, screw cap, lug cap, cork stopper, roll-on cap, crimp-on cap, press-on c ...
s, traditionally cylindrical and made of glass
* Cylindrical vessels including:
**
Barrel
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, ...
s, made of wooden staves bound by rope, wooden or metal hoops.
**
Can
Can may refer to:
Containers
* Aluminum can
* Drink can
* Oil can
* Steel and tin cans
* Trash can
* Petrol can
* Metal can (disambiguation)
Music
* Can (band), West Germany, 1968
** ''Can'' (album), 1979
* Can (South Korean band)
Other
* C ...
s, traditionally cylindrical and
sheet-metallic.
**
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...
s, similar to a can but definitely cylindrical and not necessarily metallic
**
Tub
* Rectilinear vessels including:
**
Box
A box (plural: boxes) is a container used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides. Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or very large (like a shipping box for furniture), and can ...
es
**
Crate
A crate is a large shipping container, often made of wood, typically used to transport or store large, heavy items. Steel and aluminium crates are also used. Specialized crates were designed for specific products, and were often made to be reusa ...
s, a box or rectilinear exoskeleton, designed for hoisting or loading
**
Wooden box
A wooden box is a container made of wood for storage or as a shipping container.
Construction may include several types of wood; lumber (timber), plywood, engineered woods, etc. For some purposes, decorative woods are used.
Boxes as ship ...
es
**
Lift-vans
**
Corf
A corf (pl. corves) also spelt corve (pl. corves) is a container of wood, net, chicken wire, metal or plastic used to contain live fish, eels or crustaceans (such as crayfish) underwater, at docks or in fishing boats.
Origin of term
1350–140 ...
** Certain
waste container
A waste container, also known as a dustbin, garbage can, and trash can is a type of container that is usually made out of metal or plastic. The words "rubbish", "basket" and "bin" are more common in British English usage; "trash" and "can" a ...
s
* Flexible containers including:
**
Bags, such as
shopping bag
Shopping bags are medium-sized bags, typically around 10–20 litres (2.5–5 gallons) in volume (though much larger versions exist, especially for non-grocery shopping), that are used by shoppers to carry home their purchases. Some are intended ...
s,
mail bag
A mail bag or mailbag is a generic term for a type of bag used for collecting, carrying, categorizing, and classifying different types of postal material, depending on its priority, destination, and method of transport. It is oftentimes used ...
s,
sick bag
A sickness bag (also known as a sick sack, airsick bag, airsickness bag, emesis bag, sick bag, barf bag, vomit bag, disposal bag, waste bag, Doggie bag or motion sickness bag) is a small bag commonly provided to passengers on board airplanes and ...
**
Luggage
Baggage or luggage consists of bags, cases, and containers which hold a traveler's personal articles while the traveler is in transit. A modern traveler can be expected to have packages containing clothing, toiletries, small possessions, trip ...
, including
satchel
A satchel is a bag with a strap, traditionally used for carrying books.Satchel
The Cambridge Dictionary. ...
s,
backpack
A backpack—also called knapsack, schoolbag, rucksack, rucksac, pack, sackpack, booksack, bookbag or backsack—is, in its simplest frameless form, a fabric sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders ...
s, and
briefcase
A briefcase is a narrow hard-sided box-shaped bag or case used mainly for carrying papers and equipped with a handle. Lawyers commonly use briefcases to carry briefs to present to a court, hence the name. Businesspeople and other white collar ...
s
**
Packets
**
Gunny sacks
A burlap sack or gunny sack, also known as a gunny shoe, hessian sack or tow sack, is an inexpensive bag, traditionally made of fibres which are also known as "tow," such as hessian fabric (burlap) formed from jute, hemp or other natural fib ...
,
flour sack
A flour sack or flour bag is a bag or sack for flour. Large bulk bags as well as smaller consumer sizes are available.
Description
A flour sack or flour bag is a bag or sack for flour. Sacks range in size and material.
Package types
Bulk ...
s
**
Wallet
A wallet is a flat case or pouch often used to carry small personal items such as paper currency, credit cards; identification documents such as driver's license, identification card, club card; photographs, transit pass, business cards and oth ...
s
*
Shipping container
A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context of ...
s, including:
**
Corrugated box
Corrugated box design is the process of matching design factors for corrugated fiberboard boxes with the functional physical, processing and end-use requirements. Packaging engineers work to meet the performance requirements of a box while control ...
es, made of
corrugated fiberboard
Corrugated fiberboard or corrugated cardboard is a type of packaging material consisting of a fluted corrugated sheet and one or two flat linerboards. It is made on "flute lamination machines" or "corrugators" and is used for making corrugated ...
**
Intermodal container
An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different Mode of transport, modes of trans ...
s, a.k.a. ship container or cargo container
***
Twenty-foot equivalent unit
The twenty-foot equivalent unit (abbreviated TEU or teu) is an inexact unit of cargo capacity, often used for container ships and container ports.Rowlett, 2004. It is based on the volume of a intermodal container, a standard-sized metal box whic ...
s, an industry standard intermodal container size
**
Intermediate bulk container
Intermediate bulk containers (also known as IBC tank, IBC tote, IBC, or pallet tank) are industrial-grade containers engineered for the mass handling, transport, and storage of liquids, semi-solids, pastes, or solids. The two main categories of I ...
s
**
Unit load device
A unit load device (ULD) is a container used to load luggage, freight, and mail on wide-body aircraft and specific narrow-body aircraft. It allows preloading of cargo, confidence the containerised load will fit in the aircraft and efficient plann ...
s, similar to a crate
**
Flexible intermediate bulk container
A flexible intermediate bulk container (FIBC), jumbo, bulk bag, super sack, big bag, or tonne bag is an industrial container made of flexible fabric that is designed for storing and transporting dry, flowable products, such as sand, fertilizer, ...
s
References
Sources
* Yam, K.L., "Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology", John Wiley & Sons, 2009,
External links
*
*
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Food packaging
Packaging