#1487 How did Bubble Wrap start?

How did Bubble Wrap start? Bubble Wrap began as a type of wallpaper.

We see Bubble Wrap fairly often, probably more so since Amazon has taken over our shopping. Bubble Wrap is actually a trademarked brand, and it is owned by Sealed Air Corporation, although it has become somewhat like Kleenex, Aspirin, and Kerosene, in that the brand name has become the name for the product itself. Bubble Wrap is a flexible sheet of transparent plastic covered in air-filled bubbles. The quantity and the size of the bubbles depend on the intended use for the packaging.

Bubble Wrap is so commonly used because it is incredibly effective and cheap at the same time. It works because it can protect the item being shipped from shocks, vibrations, and scratches. Well, any wrapping could protect it from scratches, but when it comes to shocks, Bubble Wrap is very effective. Items in transit are damaged when they are subjected to forces, such as being dropped or hitting the side of the container. Let’s look at an object that falls off the top of a shelf. If there is no packaging, the object impacts the floor, and the forces that it encounters will break it. The object on the shelf has potential energy because it is being held against gravity. When it falls off, the potential gravity is converted to kinetic energy. When the object hits the floor, the object stops instantly, and that kinetic energy has to go somewhere. Some of it is absorbed into the floor, and the rest is absorbed back into the object. The energy breaks components and parts. If that object is wrapped in Bubble Wrap, the forces are absorbed by the air in the bubbles. The object falls off the shelf and develops kinetic energy. It hits the floor, but the air in the bubbles compresses and the plastic in the Bubble Wrap stretches, absorbing the kinetic energy and releasing it as heat and deformation of the bubbles. This way, no energy enters the object. The bigger the object and the longer the fall, the more Bubble Wrap you will need.

Bubble Wrap was invented in 1957. Alfred Fielding, an American engineer, and Marc Chavannes, a Swiss engineer and chemist, were trying to come up with an idea for some new wallpaper. Times were changing, the beat generation had appeared, and they wanted to come up with something that would appeal. Their idea was a textured wallpaper. They sealed two plastic shower curtains together in a way that left pockets of air throughout. They tried to sell it, but nobody wanted it. Rather than start from the drawing board, they tried to come up with other ways to use their invention. Their next idea was to use it as greenhouse insulation. It is quite an effective insulator because air is a poor conductor of heat, and all of the bubbles stop heat from transferring out of the greenhouse. Again, nobody wanted their product, so they continued to brainstorm.

The eureka moment didn’t actually come from Fielding and Chavannes. They were just in the right place at the right time. IBM had just launched their first mass-produced home computer, and they needed a way of shipping it safely. The main way of packaging things in the 1950s was scrunched up newspaper. A worker at IBM had seen the bubble greenhouse insulation, and he put them in touch with IBM. In 1960, Fielding and Chavannes formed a company called Sealed Air and started supplying IBM with Bubble Wrap. The rest is history.

The patent on Bubble Wrap expired in 1981, and these days, most of the Bubble Wrap you buy is probably made in China. There are a few problems with Bubble Wrap that various companies are trying to solve. The first is, obviously, that it is made of plastic. As people are trying to move away from plastic, more sustainable packaging has become necessary. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make bubble wrap with any other material because the material needs to be able to stretch and deform. Eco-friendly alternatives to Bubble Wrap do exist, such as recyclable foam and paper packaging, but they don’t have bubbles. The second problem is that bubble wrap takes up a lot of space and is difficult to ship. The air has to be inserted when it is produced, which means shipping is hard. Recently, Sealed Air have made Bubble Wrap that can be shipped flat and then inflated when it is needed. The problem is that the Bubble Wrap material needs to be stronger, and the companies that inflate it need to hire a machine from Sealed Air for $500 a year. 200 companies in the US, including the US Navy, have rented the machines so far. The stronger material means the bubbles don’t pop, and it will absorb more shock. Still, most of the fun of Bubble Wrap comes from popping the bubbles. And this is what I learned today.

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/global/2006/0508/026.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealed_Air

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/accidental-invention-bubble-wrap-180971325

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_wrap

https://www.cruzfoam.com/post/10-eco-friendly-bubble-wrap-alternatives

https://diapkg.com/blog/the-science-behind-bubble-wrap-how-it-protects-fragile-shipments