A Euro container, also called Eurobox, Euro crate or KLT box (from , "small load carrier"), is an industrial stacking container conforming to the VDA 4500 standard. The standard was originally defined by the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) for the automotive industry, but was subsequently adopted across many other areas of manufacturing and the shipping industry. The most common sizes (length × width) are and , which can be stacked together to fill a Euro-pallet measuring .
Dimensions
Eurocontainers are based around two standard heights of and , including a overlap in the vertical direction—the height of the feet, or base, stacked into the lip of the box below:
+Measurements in millimetres Nominal Actual Internal – not retrievable 16 January 2019. 300×200 297×198 243×162 400×300 396×297 346×265 600×400 594×396 544×364 800×600 800×600 752×552
These containers are manufactured typically in grey polypropylene or another thermoplast by injection molding.
Containers with full floor and walls are watertight. Many designs have at least two or more often four rectangular (about 12 x 4 cm) rounded grip-holes near the middle of the lips. The design may include some small holes in the lowest parts of at least two walls to let liquid run out if stored outdoors in rain or after washing. Walls constructed as grids allow one to see from the side into the box. If the bottom is formed by a grid, too, air may flow easily through even stacked boxes to keep bakery dry or allow quick cooling.
Euro-containers mounted on the rear rack of a bicycle or small motorcycle are widely used by newspaper-deliverers in Austrian towns. A Euro-container fits between the frame tubes in the low transportation bay of the Danish freight bike Bullitt.
Related standards The 400×300-millimetre sizes and stacking height were adopted in the early 1990s for inter-stacking Systainer boxes.
See also Cardboard box Banana box, a type of cardboard box designed for transportation of bananas EUR-pallet, the standard European pallet Gastronorm, a European standard for sizes on containers for kitchen use Manual handling of loads Milk crate, a similarly-sized standardized container OpenStructures, open specification for modular interfaces in hardware based on a geometrical grid Preferred metric sizes Reusable packaging Reverse logistics 32 mm cabinetmaking system, a standard for shelving
References