Milk Cartons
Milk Cartons are a common paper waste that can be recycled to make functional items and decorative art. A half-gallon milk carton is an amazing piece of paper engineering. This 4x4x8 container can hold just over four pounds of liquid for 10 or more days without leaking. Not only that, it can retain its beautiful yet simple rectangular Victorian house like shape from all the abuse it is subjected to in the factory were it is filled, in supermarket and handling in homes. Imaging how many times a milk carton is moved around in a home, before the milk is consumed and the carton thrown away. With all this abuse, it will retain its shape and hold the liquid without allowing it to leak.

The design of the milk carton is ideal to make a cookie jar type of a container, by converting the top portion to a lid and the lover portion to a retainer. When the container is spilt into two, the upper part will retain the strength due to many folding already build into that section; the lover part will become flimsy. Building a color at the point of the slice reinforces strength lost in the bottom part. Strength is build by folding the paper invert one inch and securing with glue and staples. A layer of paper and a strip of cloth add more strength to the color.

The upper portion of the container is worked into a cookie jar type of a lid. The lip inherent to the milk container will execute the function of a handle for the lid.

Milk containers are also stylized in the shape of cat containers. A section of an egg carton is used as legs, a milk carton for the body and cereal box cardboard is shaped into a cat face.
The History Of The Milk Carton
Milk in paper cartons were first introduced in San Francisco in 1906. Using paper to package fluids was a formidable challenge due to its perforated nature. Paper will absorb moisture and will eventually disintegrate. To over come this problem, earlier version of milk carton were courted with paraffin wax. Another problem encounted was the top, bottom and side seams that had to be sealed to form a box. Animal glues were used in the beginning. These glues did not work well, causing leaks and contamination of the product. Milk is highly perishable and coming in contact with the animal glue or leaks made it go bad.

Before the paper carton, it was the glass bottle that was used to package milk. The glass was heavy and needed much energy to transport. Although glass bottles were reusable, they had to be cleaned to a sterile state to be reused. The cleaning process was also energy intensive. Glass is breakable and had to be handled with much care. These conditions put milk packaged in glass bottles distribution highly localized. Inventing other materials to package milk was foreseen as a way to increase efficiencies in packaging, transportation, and storage of the product.

In the 1920's nearly ten companies were making pre-formed paper milk cartons. As with the milk bottle, a fair amount of warehouse space was needed to store the blank cartons. In 1915 John Van Wormer was granted a U.S. patent for the folded paper milk carton. Van owned a toy factory in Toledo, Ohio. He got the idea for paper milk cartons after dropping a milk bottle one morning. Unlike its predecessors, the cartons were delivered flat and were folded, glued, filled and sealed at the dairy. He called it "Pure-Pak," because the container could be thrown away after one use. It took ten years for Van Wormer to build a machine that is capable of to form, fill and seal the paper Pure-Pak containers. American Paper Company acquired Van Wormer's patent and worked on to perfect the machines. The first six machines were built between 1929 and 1934.

In 1934 Ex-Cell-O Corporation, a Detroit-based automobile machinery manufacturing company, acquired the rights to manufacture and distribute the Pure-Pack system. Ex-Cell-O introduced the tab on the side of the gable that could be lifted for pouring out. Prior to the tab, the cartons had to be cut open with a knife to pore the milk. The modern opening and pouring spout did not appear until the 1960s. The first Ex-Cell-O Pure-PaK filling machines were installed in 1936 at Border Dairies, New York.

In 1959 Ex-Cell-O introduced a laminating process to eliminate the dip in the wax to proof the paperboards. Today most of the milk and beverage cartons are formed out of polyethylene-laminated boards. The paperboard is sandwiched with a thin inner and outer layer of polyethylene. For use with fresh products, the carton is generally made out of 89% paper and approximately 11% polyethylene.

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