The History of Bubblewrap

Bubble Wrap is a good example of a failed experiment that later became hugely successful.

You can use Bubble Wrap to protect items you are packaging and shipping; you can also line your refrigerator crisper drawer with it to keep fruit and produce from bruising; outdoor plant containers can be wrapped in it to protect the containers from the winter cold. Bubble Wrap has been a huge success.

Beginnings

The Stevens Institute of Technology reveals that in the late 1950s, Marc Chavannes and Stevens graduate Al Fielding created a textured plastic that was to become a new wallpaper. It failed, but they realized that this "failure" could be used as packaging material. Today, the Sealed Air Corporation, the company these two men founded in 1960, has annual revenues of more than $3 billion.

Fun Facts

Its original name was Air Cap. Bubble Wrap is a registered trademark of the Sealed Air Corporation. In 1971, Sealed Air laminated Bubble Wrap to paper to make the first Mail Lite shipping envelopes. Bubble Wrap has more than 2 million fans on Facebook. The last Monday in January is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day.

Important Change

In November 2009, with interest in making their sealed wrap "green," Salazar Packaging, a competitor of Sealed Air, introduced a bubble packaging that was degradable. Unlike biodegradable products, this bubble packaging has a chemical additive that is blended into the wrap that accelerates the breakdown process when disposed of in landfills. Thus, another manufacturer of bubble packaging makes it a "green" product.

References

• Stevens Institute of Technology: Alfred W. Fielding '39 Co-invented Bubble Wrap
• Sealed Air Corporation: Bubble Wrap Turns 50
• Salazar Packaging: Inside Sustainable Packaging