First graders from Norcross Elementary School and volunteers from the Nordson Corporation in Duluth celebrated Earth Day on April 12 by learning how trees are used to make packaging and how packaging can be eco-friendly.

As part of the Paperboard Packaging Council (PPC) Trees into Cartons, Cartons into Trees program, students learned what’s involved in creating paperboard cartons and boxes and how that packaging can be recycled or reused.

Nordson’s Rick Pallante, PPC industry specialist, educated nearly 200 NES first graders about how trees are harvested and processed into paperboard containers. An explanation about efficient use of the trees and other natural resources and how the packaging they produce can be repurposed was followed by the hands-on activity.

All students decorated paperboard packages and planted a trees that they could take home and put out in their yards. Additionally, they named their trees and wrote little notes of encouragement to read to their trees to inspire them to thrive and mature. The paperboard facial tissue box serves to protect the young sapling and then as the plant grows, the paperboard breaks down into the soil. This completes the Trees into Cartons, Cartons into Trees cycle.

At the end of the day, each student got to take home their planted tree and a paperboard box of macaroni & cheese as a fun, tasty reminder of the renewability and sustainability of paperboard packaging.

The Nordson volunteers had the tired but happy satisfaction of an active, entertaining day helping our next generation understand just a little more about the world we share.

Extra supplies and tools were donated to support NES’s vegetable garden, and boxes of macaroni & cheese were contributed to the school’s food bank. Trader Joe’s in The Forum generously provided grocery bags for the children to carry home their day’s bounty.

The Nordson Corporation delivers precision technology solutions that help customers increase speed, productivity and up-time, enable new products and features, and decrease material usage. The company engineers, manufactures and markets differentiated products and systems used for dispensing adhesives, coatings, sealants, biomaterials and other materials, fluid management, testing and inspection, and UV curing and surface plasma treatment, all supported by application expertise and direct global sales and service. Visit Nordson at www.nordson.com, twitter.com/Nordson_Corp, or Facebook.com/Nordson.