Cardboard boxes are a near-perfect delivery medium, and thanks to their environmentally friendly recyclable credentials, endless potential for customisation and remarkable robustness, it is impossible to find a better way to deliver parcels.

It is a small wonder, therefore, that nearly every single delivery service has relied heavily on vast amounts of cardboard to ensure that they can efficiently deliver products and parcels wherever they need to go.

Because there is such a defined standard and cardboard boxes are such a ubiquitous part of the supply chain, some boxes have been made to break records, defy expectations and show what is possible with such a seemingly simple concept.

The Biggest Box Ever Made

There are a few standard sizes, but cardboard boxes can theoretically be made to any size, although the bigger they get, the more support they need, the thicker the cardboard itself needs to be and the more complex the internal construction can sometimes get.

The current world record, and one that is unlikely to be beaten stands at 3,264.42 square metres (120m x 20m x 4m). It needed 3000 staples to put it together and weighed by the time of its completion 1400kg, or 40 kg heavier than a Toyota Aygo car.

The giant box, made by packaging company Smurfit Kappa, was not ever used; once the record was finalised it was dismantled and recycled into a collection of much smaller boxes.

When Cardboard Boxes Save Lives

Cardboard boxes tend to save time by being particularly convenient not only for deliveries but also for storage, with many larger cardboard boxes being kept for a remarkably long time as a kind of makeshift storage solution.

However, cardboard boxes do not only save time, they can even save lives, as they played a vital part in one of the most audacious crash landings in history.

Skydiving without a parachute is considered to be almost impossible, as whether a skydiver lands on solid ground or on water, the result is somewhat predictable.

However, stuntman Gary Connery attempted this seemingly impossible task with nothing but a wingsuit to control his fall slightly, perfect wind conditions and a bed of over 18,000 cardboard boxes to break his fall from speeds that reached up to 80mph, although this slowed to 50mph when he flared his wingsuit.

He was the first person to land from a skydiving height (730m or 2,400 feet) without a parachute, and whilst other people have survived higher falls than this without a parachute, they either relied on special nets or were seriously injured in the process.

Whilst the stuntman largely attempted the skydive just to see if it was possible, it would ultimately lead to a wide range of studies of cardboard boxes as a shock-absorbing material.

After all, if a cardboard box can help someone land head-first uninjured from 2,400 feet, it can also protect fragile items being shipped from a warehouse to a customer.

Largest Cardboard Box Ever Opened

Whilst the Smurfit Kappa record-setting box holds what is likely to be an unbreakable record, it was not actually used as a cardboard box to transport anything suitably large.

However, this was not the case for a 2017 box that became the subject of what it described as the world’s largest unboxing.

As part of a rather unusual marketing campaign for the Volvo VNL lorry, the Swedish company created a life-sized box for the truck out of cardboard with a plastic window that resembled the type of boxes a toy lorry would be sold in.

Despite this, the box needed to be legitimate; according to the Guinness World Records rules, it needed to surround the lorry entirely, so it could not simply be a housing or makeshift shelter, it had to be opened manually without the need for any tools, and needed to survive the lorry driving out of it.

To prove that this was the case, Volvo recruited a three-year-old enthusiast to open the huge and presumably very heavy box, and once that was completed, he also got a picture with the certificate and adjudicator to prove that the record was legitimate.

Cardboard Boxes Create An Endless Loop Of Loops

Some records involving cardboard boxes are a matter of scale, such as the tallest tower of pizza boxes or a pyramid made from LED light boxes. However, cardboard boxes can also help to facilitate other astonishing records.

One recent example of this in 2023 was the record for the most Hot Wheels loop-de-loops fitted to a track, with the 20 loops supported by a stabiliser made from cardboard and heavy-duty tape.