Coroplast - the Secret Ingredient!

What is Coroplast?

Coroplast™ is everywhere--from election signs, to promotional signs at gas stations and supermarkets, to storage boxes. Coroplast is a brand name of corrugated plastic and a registered trademark of Coroplast, Inc., a member of the Jim Pattison Group of companies. Because of the success of this brand, it has become a genericized trademark and many people in North America today refer to corrugated plastic as "coroplast". It is also marketed under such names as Corr-x, Plasticor, Hi Cor, Correx, Corriflute, Corflute, Coroflute, Cadflute, Fluteboard, Polionda (Portuguese), Twinplast, Kanalplast (Swedish), Corlite and many others. As the name implies, it looks similar to corrugated cardboard except it's made of plastic. To be specific, it is a polypropylene copolymer (other brands may differ slightly in composition.) It is a light-weight, tough material which can easily be cut with a craft knife, heavy-duty scissors or a razor blade. A full 4x8 foot sheet only weighs about 4 pounds. It is great for outdoor signs because it's weatherproof, stiff, resilient, and resistant to UV and chemicals. These characteristics make it great for guinea pig cages, too. As you might guess, most sign shops carry Coroplast; but you can usually do much better with price and selection if you can find a wholesaler.

Is it Safe?

The name Coroplast applies to a wide range of extruded corrugated plastic sheet products based on polypropylene copolymers. The natural polymer is chemically inert and is generally considered non-toxic and safe for use in contact with food. The base resin meets FDA requirements as listed in Food Additive Regulation Title 21, Section 177.1520(c), Item 1.1, covering food contact uses.

Pigmented or otherwise modified sheets are not considered to constitute any extra health hazard under normal handling and conversion. All additives are melt-blended into the polymer and encapsulated. Colors are available which will meet food contact approvals.

Is Coroplast Safe for Guinea Pigs?

To date, in the ten-plus years that Coroplast has been used as a guinea pig cage material, there have been no reports of guinea pig illnesses or injuries attributed to Coroplast. Very rarely, a guinea pig might decide to chew on the edge of the Coroplast. The cage design is very easily remedied to stop such behavior. For the few guinea pigs who have managed to chew down a small section of Coroplast, none have suffered any ill effects. It's likely that they are chewing the edge just for the chewing satisfaction and not to eat the material. The easiest remedy is to temporarily attach an appropriate length of wood dowel along the top edge which stops the behavior and can be removed when habit is broken. Be sure your guinea pigs have ample Timothy or other grass hay available at all times and at least one wooden hidey house to gnaw on to help keep their incisors ground down. Typical 'chew toys' and small blocks of wood or sticks just take up space. Guinea pigs do not use them.

Effect of Heat / Combustion

Coroplast is made from a combustible thermoplastic material, polypropylene. While discretion would suggest that observation of precautions consistent with regulatory codes and standards should be followed when working with Coroplast, it is equally important to note that compared to other plastics on the market Coroplast is very low on a relative hazard scale.

While Coroplast will burn, it does not have a flash point or an uncontrollable flame spread rate like some acrylics or styrene. It responds very much like paper. Should a fire start it is easily extinguished by any type of extinguisher. Burning Coroplast generates combustion products with very low toxicity. This is common to polyolefin polymers.

For more technical Coroplast information, see: http://www.coroplast.com/geninfo.htm.

Recyclable

Corrugated sheet is recyclable and is therefore considered by many to be environmentally friendly. Once you've purchased some Coroplast for your cage and you decide to remodel or expand and you have left-over Coroplast, there are a lot of things you can do with it! Definitely don't throw it away. It makes a nice shelf-liner for those wire-rack utility shelves, kids' school projects and much more.

Size & Thickness for Cages

Coroplast comes in 4 foot x 8 foot sheets in the United States. The usual thickness for Coroplast is 4mm(millimeters) or just under a quarter of an inch. This is the ideal thickness for C&C (Cubes and Coroplast)cages. If you can get a full sheet of Coroplast, that is ideal, because you can use any scraps or left-over pieces for other parts of the cage or other uses.

Where do you buy it?

That is the tricky question! You can buy it pre-cut and scored for guinea pig cages at our store: C&C Cages Store or you can find it at local sign stores and plastics companies and wholesalers. For a directory of suppliers near you, check our list of Coroplast vendors. Since it's used heavily in the creation of custom business signage, a 'sign store' is the best place to start. Check your telephone Yellow Pages under 'Sign Stores.' When asking about the price, be sure to let them know it's for a guinea pig cage. Otherwise, they may charge you more thinking that you are a competitor needing some supplies for making signs. If the price is still too high, try finding the wholesale supplier of the sign store. Either check the Yellow Pages or ask the store directly from whom they buy their Coroplast.

When purchasing Coroplast from a retail sign store, a typical 'good' price is $25-35. Some will charge more, but at $25-35, they are still making a reasonable profit. A wholesale price might be under $10 if you are lucky, but a typical wholesale price is in the $15-20 range when you are buying a single sheet. Frequently, you can get a sheet of white coroplast cheaper than a colored sheet.

Find Coroplast for FREE!

Since Coroplast is such a versatile product, it has many uses. Check with large grocery stores. They use it on pallets and such to help slide products around. Just ask and you might be surprised at what they might give you. Also, just after election time, check in with campaign headquarters, it may look funky, but it will work. All those now obsolete signs can be recycled!

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How to Sex Guinea Pigs 

Floor Time 

Cleaning the Cage 

Recycling Previous Purchases