Child-Proof Paper or Cardboard Container

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 18/639, 310 filed on Apr. 18, 2024, which is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 17/712,492 filed on Apr. 4, 2022, and claims priority to European Patent Application No. 21166876.9 filed on Apr. 6, 2021, the entire disclosure of each of these applications is incorporated herein by reference.

The present invention relates to containers, in particular to containers for household products.

The invention was developed in view of its application to containers for laundry and dishwasher detergent pods.

Laundry and dishwasher detergent pods are water-soluble pouches containing highly concentrated laundry detergents, softeners, and other laundry products. Detergent pods are becoming increasingly popular in view of the ease of use for the user and the positive impact on sustainability as they are a way to reduce wasted use of powdered and liquid detergent by having precise measurements for a load.

Concern has been raised over children accidentally being exposed to laundry pods, because of their pattern and multi-color design which make them similar to candies and the risk that children may confuse them as such.

In 2012, in response to a child swallowing Tide Pods, Procter & Gamble said they would make the pod container more difficult to open by adding a double latch to the lid, and has also re-focused their advertising to make clear the product should be out of a child's reach at all times. The pod packaging was also changed to an opaque orange rather than the original clear plastic gumball machine-type presentation to make them look less enticing. Other manufacturers followed suit with equivalent packaging changes. In 2013,stated that there had been nearly 7,700 reported incidents in which children aged 5 or younger had been exposed to laundry pods, and that year one child from Florida died after ingesting a pod. In 2014, a study published infound that from 2012 to 2013, more than 17,000 calls were made to poison control centers about children who had been exposed to the pods. Despite the industry's move toward safer packaging, a 2017 study published infound that between 2012 and 2015, the number of chemical eye burns associated with laundry detergent pods among 3- to 4-year-old children skyrocketed from fewer than 20 to almost 500 per year. In 2015, these injuries were responsible for 26% of all chemical eye burns among this population.

In light of the dangers posed by the ingestion of pods by children, packaging manufacturers have committed to the development of child-resistant containers, the introduction of which has reduced the incidence of accidental ingestion of potentially hazardous substances by children under the age of 5. Whether this is due to the use of this type of packaging is not easily assessed, but there is no doubt that child-resistant packaging has made a positive contribution to this reduction. Given the increasingly frequent use of this type of packaging, it has become necessary to define its characteristics and relative testing methods in order to provide adequate guarantees and avoid confusion and misunderstandings in a sector of great importance for the safety of children.

To meet this need, UNI has published the UNI EN ISO 8317:2005 standard “Child-resistant packaging—Requirements and test procedures for reclosable packaging”. This standard establishes the characteristics that resealable packaging must have before being placed on the market (in particular for solvents, household hygiene products, strongly acid or alkaline preparations, substances used for gardening, etc.).

Child-resistant containers, when tested in accordance with the standards, must provide a satisfactory degree of resistance to opening by children but—at the same time—a sufficient level of accessibility to its contents by adults.

The test procedures should therefore be carried out in two stages: a test with children and a test with adults. The test with children is carried out in the presence of a supervisor and in an environment that is familiar to them: a group of no more than 200 children between the ages of 42 and 51 months is formed. The children must be selected so as to represent as faithfully as possible the different social, ethnic and cultural origins of the population as a whole, and not only of the area where the test is carried out. Each pair of children is given a number of packages to open by whatever means they wish to use. They have 10 minutes: if they cannot open or access the contents of the product in the first five minutes of the test, they must watch a single demonstration of opening the packaging by an adult; after which they have another five minutes to try to open the packaging.

The packaging is considered compliant if:

The vast majority of containers for detergent pods presently on the market are made of plastic materials, because of the need to provide the containers with elastic snap-engagement formations and locking elements which are necessary to ensure compliance with child-proof requirements.

One of the key goals nowadays is to achieve sustainable resource use, particularly in packaging solutions. Although plastic containers can be recycled when designed as single-material solutions, in common practice only 80% of that material can actually be recycled.

Furthermore, the global average recycling rate for plastic in 2019 was only 8%, making plastic an undesirable material from a sustainability perspective. Therefore, the use of plastic should be minimized.

All known solutions, however, fall far short of minimizing the amount of plastic when it comes to providing the functions and features expected from packaging.

Many containers are nowadays made to a greater or lesser extent of paper or cardboard which—as such—represent environmentally sustainable materials with a low environmental impact as they are totally recyclable.

However, the creation of child-proof containers made of paper or cardboard for detergent pods is a challenge, as it is difficult to make re-closable child-proof containers made of paper or cardboard that meet the requirements of child-resistant standards.

The object of the present invention is to provide an eco-sustainable container for detergent pods which overcomes the problems of the prior art.

More specifically the object of the present invention is to provide a child-proof re-closable container made of paper or cardboard.

In accordance with the present invention, these objects are achieved by a container according to claim.

According to another aspect, the invention relates to paper or cardboard blanks for manufacturing child-proof containers.

The claims form an integral part of the technical disclosure provided here in relation to the invention.

It should be appreciated that the attached drawings are schematic and various figures may not be represented in the same scale. Also, in various figures some elements may not be shown to better show other elements.

With reference to, a paper or cardboard container is indicated by the reference numeral. The paper or cardboard containercomprises a container bodyand a movable cover. The container bodyhas an apertureand the movable coveris removably applied to the apertureand is movable between a closed configuration shown inand an open configuration shown in.

In the embodiment shown inthe movable coveris detachable from the container body.

The container bodyand the movable coverare produced starting from respective flat blanks′,′ having the shapes shown in. The blanks′,′ are cut from flat paper or cardboard sheets or from a continuous paper sheet unwound from a reel. The blanks′,′ have a plurality of folding lines indicated inby dash and dot lines. The container bodyand the movable coverare obtained by folding the respective blanks′,′ along said folding lines. The containeris entirely made of paper or cardboard and can be recycled as a paper waste without the need of removing any plastic part.

The container bodycomprises a bottom wallopposite the aperture, a pair of body front wallsparallel to each other and orthogonal to the bottom wall, and a pair of body side wallsparallel to each other and orthogonal to the bottom wall.

Each of the body side wallscomprises an outer layerand an inner layeroverlapped to each other. The outer layerhas a through holeand the inner layerhas a through windowfacing the through holeof the outer layer.

With reference to, the inner layerof each of said body side wallsmay be formed by a first portionconnected to the bottom wallof the container bodyby a first folding line. The outer layerof each of said body side wallsmay be formed by two second portionsconnected to respective body front wallsof the container bodyby respective second folding lines. Each of the two second portionsforming the outer layerhas one half-hole. When the two second portionsare coplanar with each other, the two half-holesform the through hole.

The two second portionsforming the outer layermay be fixed to the respective first portionforming the inner layer, e.g. by glue.

With reference to, the movable covercomprises a top walland a pair of cover sidesparallel to each other and orthogonal to the top wall. The movable covermay comprise two cover front wallsparallel to each other and orthogonal to the top wall.

With reference to, the movable coverhas a pair of engagement tabsprojecting from distal sides of the respective cover sides. Each engagement tabis folded over an outer surface of the respective cover side. The engagement tabsmay be fixed, e.g. by glue, to the respective outer surfaces of the cover sidesor they may be free, i.e. not fixed to the respective outer surfaces of the cover sides.

The engagement tabsand the through windowsmay be located in central portions of the cover sidesand body side walls, respectively.

With reference to, in the closed configuration of the paper or cardboard containerthe outer surfaces of the cover sidesare in contact with respective portions of the inner surfaces of the respective body side wallsand the cover front wallsare in contact with respective portions of the inner surfaces of the body front walls.

With reference to, in the closed configuration the engagement tabsof the cover sidesengage into respective windowsof the body side wallsand retain the coverto the container body.

A user may release the coverfrom the container bodyby inserting a finger in each of the through holesand pressing inwardly on the engagement tabs, so as to disengage the engagement tabsfrom the respective through windowsand simultaneously raising the movable cover.

The operations necessary for removing the movable coverare sufficiently complex to ensure that the paper or cardboard containeris child-proof compliant.

With reference to, in a possible embodiment the inner layerof each of the body side wallshas a flapfolded orthogonal to the inner layerand extending along a lower edge of the through window. The flapsprevent that the coveris pushed into the container bodybeyond the position in which the engagement tabsare engaged into the respective through windows.

A second embodiment of a paper or cardboard containeraccording to the invention is shown in. The elements corresponding to those previously disclosed are indicated by the same reference numerals.

In the embodiment ofthe movable coveris hinged to the container body. The movable coverand the container bodyare produced starting from a single paper or cardboard blank′ having the shape shown inby folding the blank′ along folding lines indicated inby dash and dot lines.

The movable coveris hinged to the container bodyalong a hinge lineextending along a side of the top wallof the movable coverand along a top side of one of the front wallsof the container body.

In the embodiment ofthe movable coverhas only one cover front wallopposite the hinge line. The engagement tabsand the through windowsmay be located in lateral portions of the cover sidesand body side wallswhich are opposite to the lateral portions of the cover sidesand body side wallsadjacent to the hinge line.

With reference to, in the embodiment ofthe outer layerof each of the body side wallsmay be formed by a third portionconnected to the bottom wallof the container bodyby a third folding lineand the inner layerof each of the body side wallsmay be formed by two fourth portionsconnected to respective body front wallsof the container bodyby respective fourth folding lines. Also in this embodiment the third portionsforming the outer layersmay be fixed, e.g. by glue, to the respective fourth portionsforming the inner layers.

Also in the embodiment ofin the closed configuration the engagement tabsof the cover sidesengage into respective windowsof the body side wallsand retain the coverto the container body, and the covermay be released from the container bodyby inserting a finger in each of the through holesand pressing inwardly on the engagement tabs, so as to disengage the engagement tabsfrom the respective through windowsand simultaneously raising the movable cover.

A third embodiment of a paper or cardboard containeraccording to the invention is shown in. The elements corresponding to those previously disclosed are indicated by the same reference numerals.

In the third embodiment the movable coveris hinged to the container bodyas in the second embodiment. Also in this third embodiment the movable coverand the container bodyare produced starting from a single paper or cardboard blank′ having the shape shown inby folding the blank′ along folding lines indicated inby dash and dot lines.

The third embodiment is designed to improve the resistance to humidity as compared to the second embodiment. With reference to, each of the body side wallscomprises an intermediate layerset between the inner layerand outer layer. The intermediate layerhas a second through holealigned to the through holeof the outer layer.

With reference to, the outer layerof each of the body side wallsis formed by a fifth portionconnected to the bottom wallof the container bodyby a fifth folding line.

The intermediate layeris formed by two sixth portionsconnected to respective body front wallsof the container bodyby respective sixth folding lines.

The inner layeris formed by a seventh portionconnected to a distal edge of the respective fifth portionby a seventh folding line. The through windowsand the respective flapsare formed in the respective seventh portions.