Container

This article is about physical containers. For the standardized shipping unit, see Intermodal container. For other uses, see Container (disambiguation).
Simple containers made from gourds being sold for use as calabash in Kenya.
Display of a woven basket from the Maya peoples of Mexico.
A corrugated fiberboard box.
A spine car with a 6 metres (20 ft) tank container and an open-top intermodal shipping container with canvas cover.
Intermediate bulk containers, commonly used in industrial settings for the handling, transport, and storage of liquids, semi-solids, pastes, or solids.

A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping.[1] Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term is most frequently applied to devices made from materials that are durable and are often partly or completely rigid.

A container can also be considered as a basic tool,[2][3] consisting of any device creating a partially or fully enclosed space that can be used to contain, store, and transport objects or materials.

  1. ^ Soroka, W (2008). Illustrated Glossary of Packaging Terms. Institute of Packaging Professionals. p. 51. ISBN 978-1-930268-27-2.
  2. ^ David P. Braun, "Pots as Tools", in J. A. Moore and A. S. Keene, eds., Archaeological Hammers and Theories (1983), pp. 108–134.
  3. ^ Karen Gayle Harry, Stephanie Michelle Whittlesey, Trixi Bubemyre, Pots, Potters, And Models: Archaeological Investigations at the SRI Locus of the West Branch Site, Tucson, Arizona (2005), p. 283: "The perspective taken in this chapter is that ceramic containers are tools (Braun 1983) and, as a crucial part of the technological repertoire, can provide considerable information about activity organization, production technology, food-preparation and storage technology, settlement function, and economic organization".