Honeycomb panel is laminated paper cells faced with liner, producing a rigid board from half an inch to two inches thick. We press it from recovered corrugated that is too tired to be a container. It replaces plywood in a surprising number of dunnage applications, and in 2024 three local manufacturers let us measure what happened when they switched.
The material, briefly
| Property | Honeycomb, 1" | Plywood, 1/2" | Expanded foam, 1" |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weight per sq ft | 0.35 – 0.6 lb | 1.5 lb | 0.2 lb |
| Compressive strength | 40 – 120 psi | High | 10 – 25 psi |
| Cuts with | Standard blade | Saw | Hot wire |
| Moisture tolerance | Low | Moderate | High |
| End-of-life | Standard OCC stream | Rarely recycled | Almost never |
| Relative cost | 1.0× | 2.4 – 3.1× | 1.3 – 1.8× |
| Splinters / fasteners | None | Both | Dust and static |
What the three sites did
All three were using half-inch plywood as layer separation and edge protection inside triple-wall bulk bins carrying machined components. Two switched entirely; one switched for layer separation only and kept plywood for base boards.
| Measure | Site A | Site B | Site C (partial) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dunnage weight per bin | −71% | −68% | −42% |
| Dunnage cost per bin | −58% | −61% | −34% |
| Product damage rate | −0.4 pts | No change | No change |
| Dunnage reuse cycles | 6.2 | 4.8 | 7.1 |
| Disposal cost | Eliminated | Eliminated | −40% |
Why the weight matters more than it looks
Site A was shipping 22 bins per truckload with roughly 48 lb of plywood dunnage in each. The swap removed about 750 lb from every trailer. On a weight-constrained lane that is directly convertible into payload; on a cube-constrained lane it is fuel.
There is also a handling dimension nobody anticipated. Operators pick up a 1.5 lb honeycomb sheet one-handed where a plywood sheet took two hands and a deliberate movement. Site B reported it as the single most popular change they made that year, which was not a benefit we had included in the business case.
Where it failed
Site C kept plywood for base boards, and they were right to. Their bins were loaded by a clamp truck that occasionally made contact with the base edge, and honeycomb does not survive point impact the way plywood does. The compressive strength numbers are about distributed load; concentrated edge impact is a different test entirely.
Honeycomb is strong in the direction it was designed for and unremarkable in every other direction. Specify it for distributed compression, not for abuse.
The moisture caveat, stated plainly
Honeycomb hates standing water. A wet panel loses most of its compressive strength and does not recover on drying — the same mechanism that ruins corrugated containers, for the same reason.
If your dunnage is going outdoors, into a washdown area, or into a trailer that will sweat, use something else. We will say so before quoting rather than after.
Where it is clearly the right call
- Layer separation inside bulk bins and gaylords.
- Edge and corner protection on palletised loads.
- Display risers, shelving and shop fitting substrate.
- Void fill and bracing in dry transit.
- Anywhere the dunnage currently gets thrown away, because honeycomb goes into the same OCC stream as the box.
A note on the circularity
The panel in these applications is pressed from containers that failed our grading for reuse. At end of life it goes back into a standard OCC bale. That is not a marketing point so much as a practical one: there is no separate disposal stream to manage, no hazardous classification, and no awkward conversation with your waste contractor.
Our pieces are written by the people who do the work rather than by a content agency, which is why they contain more numbers and fewer adjectives than is fashionable. If a figure here does not match your experience, we would genuinely like to hear about it — two of our published coefficients have changed that way.