Research Protective Carry packaging

Part of the brief is designing additional protective packaging for the transport of the paint containers. Ideally these containers have to protect the product, offer an aid to which the product can be lifted easily & possible cope with spillages.

At first thought towards a cost effective eco friendly solution would be similar to how supermarkets provide carriers for wine.

This is a simple solution but does not incase the whole project and  damage impact is still an issue.

Corrugated cardboard was  material I looked into briefly previously. These ridges also know as Flutes offer certain advantages such as Stacking strength, Capacity to resist crushing & Puncture resistance.
There are 6 types of flutes...

'E' Flute
1400 – 2200 microns in thickness and gives excellent crush resistance and compression strength. It provides a high quality surface to print upon and is most commonly used in smaller cartons and die-cuts applications.

'S' Flute
1800 - 2200 microns in thickness S flute is balanced perfectly for both retail and transit packaging, it sits between E and B Flutes to provide the performance characteristics of B Flute, whilst producing the outstanding printability and strong crush resistance of E Flute.
'B' Flute
2600 – 3300 microns in thickness and probably the most common type of fluting. Seen in all types of applications including die-cut and regular cases it gives a good all-round performance.
'C' Flute
3600 – 4500 microns in thickness it offers greater compression strength than "B" flute thus giving slightly better stacking strength for lighter products. It can be prone to more crushing if used in the wrong application.
'EB' Flute
3800 – 4500 microns in thickness this is a double wall material combining the fine 'E' flute and the commonly used 'B' flute. The results give an excellent performance level in both print finish and impact protection.
'BC' Flute
6200 – 7500 microns in thickness this is another double wall material that marries two flute profiles together - 'B' and 'C', both giving excellent all round performances this material is most often seen in shipping cases where a high protection level is required.

Information gathered from: http://www.saxonpackaging.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17&Itemid=133

Packaging such as this fully encasing the Paint container with a handle at the top with a class 'B' + Flute lining would certainly be suitable.

I found these in a homebase store which gave me the idea of using twine as outer + inner packaging. The product (paint container) could be encased in outer packaging such as this but be strapped in the centre with twine therefore it wouldn't be affected if damage impact did occur.

Hemp Twine & cotton twine is available which is considered eco friendly due to it biodegradability so this could be an option
>http://www.ecomarket.com/products/56118818/hempiness-hemp-lightweight-twine-1/