bubble wrap, the signature product of the US-based Sealed Air Corporation, is undergoing the biggest change in its 42-year history.
Sealed Air is test-marketing an inflatable version of Bubble Wrap, the product that launched the company in 1960, and hopes to have it commercially available by next year, officials said.
Being able to ship the material in small rolls and have it inflated at customer work sites will save money while opening Bubble Wrap to new customers and new markets, said William Hickey, Sealed Air’s president and chief executive.
Hickey declined to put a figure on what the new technology will mean to the company. Bubble Wrap accounts for 10 per cent of Sealed Air’s $3 billion (€3.4bn) in sales. About two-thirds of its sales come from food packaging, including its Cryovac-brand products.
Finding a way to ship Bubble Wrap without air has been a challenge since the company’s founding, “and we believe we have come up with an answer to a 42-year quest,” Hickey said.
When inflated, each roll of Bubble Wrap is 42 inches in diameter, so only 32 rolls – just 3,000 pounds’ worth – fit into a tractor-trailer, making the product expensive to ship.
Non-inflated rolls are about a third of the diameter, with each containing nine times the amount of material as found in inflated rolls. The equivalent of a truckload would fill up just two pallets.
While saving Sealed Air shipping costs, the new technology could make Bubble Wrap attractive to potential customers who do not have room to store large rolls, Hickey said.
That could open up new markets, such as a small home-based Internet-based merchant, he said. “I can even see it in a vending machine dispenser in the post office.” From a customer’s standpoint, the process is simple and automatic once the roll of the uninflated plastic is fed through a slot in the inflation machine, which the company would supply to customers. Air comes from a compressor about half the size of a car battery, running on standard electric current and making no more noise than a small room air conditioner.
The procedure is similar to one used to inflate the company’s Fill Air packets on shipping sites, but the process is more complex because the Fill Air cushioning comes with single rows of air pockets, while Bubble Wrap has a beehive-like web of air pockets to cushion merchandise.
The new system is being field tested at 12 sites, and the goal is to “start ramping up” by next year, said Philip Cook, a company spokesman.
bubble wrap (originally Air Cap) is a trademarked brand of Sealed Air Corporation that includes numerous cushioning products made from bubble wrap. The brand and product were introduced in 1960, with the launch of Sealed Air. Although the brand was originally used for the packaging of IBM computers, Sealed Air now does most of its Bubble Wrap business in the food packaging industry.
History
Bubble wrap was invented in 1957 by engineers Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes. Fielding and Chavannes sealed two shower curtains together, creating a smattering of air bubbles, which they originally tried to sell as wallpaper. When the product turned out to be unsuccessful as wallpaper, the team marketed it as greenhouse insulation. Although Bubble Wrap was branded by Sealed Air Corporation (founded by Fielding and Chavannes) in 1960, it was not until a few years later that its use in protective packaging was discovered. As a packaging material, Bubble Wrap’s first client was IBM, which used the product to protect the IBM 1401 computer during shipment. Fielding and Chavannes were inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 1993. Sealed Air celebrated Bubble Wrap’s 50th birthday in January 2010.
Uses
In 2006, 2007, and 2008, Sealed Air hosted the Annual Bubble Wrap Competition For Young Inventors. In the competition, children are encouraged to design products made out of bubble wrap that have uses outside of the packaging industry. Inventions have included a “Bubble Wrap Car Door Cover”, a “Bubble Wrap Cushy Wheelchair”, and “Transformable Bubble Wrap Kite”. Popping Bubble Wrap is sometimes used as stress-relief, and Sealed Air’s corporate offices have “stress relief boxes” that are filled with Bubble Wrap for the employees to pop. As of January 2010, over 250 Facebook pages have been dedicated to Bubble Wrap.
bubble wrap is a transparent plastic material used for packing fragile and breakable things. It is a plastic sheet with regularly spaced bubbles. These bubbles are actually air filled hemispheres which are spaced at regular intervals and provide a cushioning to the items packed and prevent them from breaking. Bubble wrap comes in different size bubbles (from 6mm to over 25mm), widths and lengths as well as anti static bubble wrap for packaging electronic goods.
Bubble Wrap was invented by two engineers, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, in 1957. Like many innovations, it was accidental: The two were trying to create a textured plastic wallpaper with paper backing that could be easily cleaned. The term is a registered trademark of the Sealed Air Corporation (US) which was founded in 1960 by those inventors, and should theoretically only be used for products of that company. However, due to the popularity of the brand, the trademark has been genericized.
There is now even a toy out designed to mimic the sound and feel of bubble wrap. Released in September 2007 the Japanese key chain toy is called Mugen puchipuchis which means infinite puti puti. Air bubbles on double-layered silicon rubber and a built-in speaker simulate the experience of popping bubble wrap and if this wasn’t addictive enough, every 100 pops this keychain emits a random sounds such as a doorbell, a dog barking, “sexy voice” or the passing of gas.
Bubble wrap is ideal for ebay sellers as the light weight nature of bubble wrap reduces shipping costs.
Kevin Thomas works for Davpack, a uk packaging supplier. Their friendly staff are waiting to help you choose the right packaging for your business. www.davpack.co.uk
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Concerned moms won’t notice much different about the thin plastic containers of organic baby yogurt. But Stonyfield Farm Inc. hopes they do.
Responding to health concerns about possible carcinogens in the former polystyrene containers, the organic yogurt company announced Wednesday it has switched to a plastic made from corn — one of the first plant-based containers for the dairy industry and believed to be the first for yogurt.
Polyactic acid or PLA, a polymer made from corn, is nothing new. Last April, Frito-Lay came out with a compostable bag for its SunChips, one which it is now scrapping for most varieties because customers complained about how noisy it was. Coca Cola Co. has introduced a bottle made from up to 30 percent plant-based materials, and a mix of petroleum-based materials.
Stonyfield admits while its PLA package is made from a renewable source and not fossil fuels, it isn’t perfect — because of the energy, pesticides and genetically modified seeds that go into growing the corn, which is also a food source. And there’s only one U.S. facility that recycles PLA.
To offset the use of genetically modified corn, Stonyfield is paying corn growers in Nebraska extra to grow corn without genetically modified seeds and following certain environmental standards but that corn isn’t necessarily going into the cups because keeping it separate would have been too expensive, Stonyfield said.
“So we’re moving farmers off of GMOs and to better standards to meet our needs but that plastic might not actually be in our cup,” Hirshberg said.
That’s not only novel but could have significant environmental impacts if other companies come on board, said Anne Johnson, director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, an industry working group.
“In addition to the package itself, it’s following through really to the source of the feedstocks for their packaging and trying to make sure there is best practice there,” she said.
Stonyfield also has done its homework. Through a life cycle study of the packaging, it found that PLA is a better option than polystyrene, in terms of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and human health, said Nancy Hirshberg, Stonyfield’s vice president of natural resources.
The Londonderry, N.H-based company has tinkered with its packaging over the years, reducing the amount of material going into it and replacing the plastic lid on certain containers with foil. In the latest shift, it’s not changing its other containers, which are polypropylene and polyethylene.
Minimizing packaging has been the big push in the last five years with Wal-Mart as a driving force. The retail giant hopes to reduce its global packaging by 5 percent by the end of 2013.
Not only does downsizing packaging reduce Wal-Mart’s and customer waste, but smaller packages take less fuel and fewer trucks to transport, said Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg.
The Stonyfield multipack cups are not compostable and not recyclable yet, because only one U.S. facility that recycles PLA. But Stonyfield hopes to change that.
The move toward more sustainable practices has been business-driven, Johnson said.
“Sustainability is a license to operate in this day and age,” said Johnson.
By LISA RATHKE
bubble wrap is a better stress-reliever than watching TV. To others, the bubble wrap is the most affordable sleeping cushion. If you really hate the sun you can use bubble wraps too.
Foil bubble wrap is different from the ordinary translucent bubble wrap. Foil bubble wrap isn’t a bit translucent. It actually totally blocks off the heat of the sun, so little or no light can enter your windows if you place it in them. So where can you use your foil bubble wrap? Foil bubble wraps are specifically used in attics and basements.
If you’re currently having duct problems in your house since the bubble wrap is made out of plastic, it can also be used as a “material” for duct insulation. If you definitely want to eliminate heat loss from your duct, “wrap” a bubble wrap in it.
You should take note, however, that bubble wraps used for duct insulation aren’t really the same as the ones you get with fragile appliances. If you want to use the bubble wrap to solve your duct problems, you need to buy a specific “Foil Bubble Insulation Duct Wrap” for it. With bubble wrap, you can do the “insulation job” yourself. For more information and tips On Bubble Wrap visit, http://bubblewrapinsulation.com
Don’t you think that there are more uses to bubble products lately? bubble bags are used for more than just use wrapping ceramic items or covering breakable items. Several individuals have come up with different ways on how to recycle and reuse the bubble wraps for other functions.
The transparent plastic material with air-filled hemispheres is called bubble wrap. It got its name from the regularly spaced bubbles on the surface of the material. Aside from bubble wraps, there is also a bubble bag wherein the bubbles are either found inside or outside the bag. These bubble products are commonly used for wrapping breakable materials because it has a cushion-like feature.
There are several sizes of bubble wraps available. These days, more uses for the bubble products are coming out. One of which is that it is used for keeping cola and other drinks cold. It is easy to do this because all you have to do is to wrap the cold drinks with bubble products.This will keep the items cold for a longer period of time, especially during hot summer days. You can do the same thing to other frozen products like ice cream.
You can also use bubble wraps to protect your produce inside the fridge. Use your bubble packs to line the crisper drawer of your fridge, just do not paste or glue it in. This is beneficial in keeping your fruits from getting bruises. With the lined drawer, it will also be easier for you to clean it up. If you see that the bubble packs are dirty, just throw them away and use another set.
There are some patio plants that do not survive winter because of winter frost. In order to prevent this from happening, you can wrap the container of your plants with bubble products and fasten it with duct tape or string. This will work as an insulator and help keep the soil of your plants warm during the winter season. Just ensure that your bubble wrap has at least a few inches of allowance above the opening of the container.
During winter or on chilly nights, bubble wraps can help you keep warm. Put a large sheet of bubble product between the bedspread and top sheet. The bubble wrap works as an insulator. It keeps you warm because it preserves the warm air and at the same time, it releases the cold air.
One way to keep your tools lasting longer is to line your toolbox with bubble wrap. This will reduce the chances of unintentional wear and tear on your tools.
There are more uses for bubble products that one can think of. It is not just used for wrapping ceramics or fragile items any more. The next time you receive an item with bubble wrap or bubble bag, make sure that you recycle it. There are many ways that you might think of to use an ordinary bubble product.
At 3M.Hillas.com, we offer a wide range of bubble products like clear bubble out bags & bubble mailers at wholesale prices. Available in 15 popular standard sizes.
Bubble mailers should not be confused with bubble wrap although both are types of product packaging. Bubble mailers are plastic bags which are made up of different layers of plastic. Between each layer, or sometimes there are two layers laid on top of each other to form the sides of the product packaging bag, is a bubble of air that cannot escape because it’s sealed within the layers. The air bubble serves as a protective cushion that shields the contents of the product packaging from any sudden impacts or movement that could shock the contents and damage these.
Bubble wrap packaging is different because the air is contained within tiny individual pockets in the product packaging itself instead of one continuous layer of air forming between the layers of the product packaging. Sometimes bubble wrap is one long sheet for wrapping stuff to prevent these things from moving around within the cardboard boxes, especially during shipment or delivery. You may have seen bubble wrap sheets wrapped around large items like vases and framed paintings. The reason bubble wrap packaging is used for such large objects is because these cannot fit within bubble mailers.
For personal use, you can maximize the use of these bubble mailers in protecting your valuables and collectors items, such as old baseball cards. With that in mind, photographs are also important items you can seal using the bubble mailers. You can also seal fragile materials or gadgets especially if you’re in the process of moving to another place. Bubble mailers can generally be used to protect items that can fit within the bubble mailer bags.
Like other forms of product packaging, such as poly bags, you can order your bubble mailers directly from the bubble mailers manufacturers based on the size of each bubble mailer and the quantity you want. The rule of the thumb for costing is that the larger the size of the bubble mailers, the greater the opportunity to receive discounts for bulk orders. This simply means that the cost per bubble mailer in the large volume orders could shrink as you buy more, while the cost per bubble mailer in the small volume orders would increase since you would be ordering less.
That is another way that bubble mailers differ from bubble wrap packaging. Usually bubble wrap packaging is bought via length and width in huge rolls of one continuous sheet. The reason bubble wrap packaging is sold this way is that the shipper can simply cut out a certain length from each roll as they need it. Selling bubble wrap packaging per roll is thus more convenient for the end user.
On the other hand, the bubble wrap industry has had issues about the materials recycling capability after the shipment has been received. Bubble mailers can be re-used for other uses like storing items in your drawers at home or in the office. Some bubble wrap simply winds up in the landfills, so instead of allowing this to happen, you have essentially given your bubble mailers a new lease on life.
At Poly-Bags.com, we offer a wide range of bubble products like clear bubble out bags & bubble mailers at wholesale prices. Available in 15 popular standard sizes.
Growing global demand for plastic packaging has been prompting the plastic packaging manufacturers
to use more and more additives and barrier coatings for such packaging. Industry forecast is 23% growth of their use by the end of 2015.
Plastic packaging has always been one of the most important parts of retail and daily market. People all over the world have been using such packages for storage and transport of numerous articles. More than others, they have been used extensively for packaging in domestic use. Slowly but steadily, they have also been occupying a significant portion of the commercial world.
Global demands for the plastic packaging are constantly on the growth. Such trends in the market have prompted the plastic packaging manufacturers to extensively use items like additives and barriers for such packaging. Immense popularity of these items is evident from the fact that the industry foresees that there would be an annual growth over 4% in the packaging industry. Some of the surveyors assess the growth to reach $752 million by 2015.
Growth in the barrier and additives would vary a bit. It is expected that growth in the barrier coating sector could be 4.6%, annually while such growth in the additive sector would be a little lower at around 3.9%. However, the combined average predicted growth of 4.3% annually would be still higher for the plastic packaging market.
Some of the segments in the packaging industry that are likely to dominate the future and the procurements made by the plastic packaging manufacturers are things like epoxy, carbon, PVOH, and Silicon Oxide (SiOx) that would account for no less than 62% of the packaging sector in the market. And the major part of the sector is the food packaging industry. It can also be termed as the largest group of end users.
An important part of the packaging industry is the packaging technologies controlling the permeation of gases. Carbon dioxide and oxygen, water vapors, flavors as well as aromas help to prepare high quality plastic packaging covering multiple consumer commodities. Health and hygiene is also important. Of late, there has been great deal of discussions and debates on the evil impacts of the plastic packages and packets on the environment all over the world.
Trends that are influencing the growth of the packaging industry include the global recession that was affecting the entire industry for the last 18 months or more. Some of the sophisticated packaging such as the snacks, confectionaries as well as ready meals has all suffered drop in the sales. Natural consequences of all these were a negative impact on the demands for all types of functional additives as well as barrier coatings.
Hopefully, these trends would be history soon! Greater demands for barrier coated PET bottles are likely to come up in the near future with the demands for quality plastic packaging on the growth. One of the reasons is that, there is hardly an equally inexpensive or quality substitute for the packaging. In fact, the requirements for need enhanced barrier coatings and additives will result in the plastic packaging manufacturers getting a boost with advancement of new technologies and relative ease of recycling of packaging materials.
By Vaiv Jais
 Forgetting the reusable cloth shopping bags on a few shopping excursions can result in an abundance of petroleum-based plastic shopping bags. Vilified for wreaking havoc on our oceans and clogging landfills for all eternity, the cheap and easy answer to transporting goods from store to home ranks high on the list of our collective consumer sins.
And of course, with sin, comes guilt. What can be done when bad shopping bags happen to (basically) good people? The answers — and there are quite a few — might surprise you.
In an effort to ease our guilt ridden consciences and help rationalize our addiction, some retailers print recycling tips on the bags. Walgreens’ bag suggests “5 Reuses for a plastic bag” and lists: shoe protectors, dirty diaper holders (tie them tightly closed), freezer bags, rubber glove substitutes and plant protectors.
Target too encourages customers to reinvent their used bags as “tiny trash can liners,” for “doggy duty”, “soggy laundry,” “tomorrow’s lunch bag,” or as stuffing inside of a “care package.” Once the bag has been utilized in every way imaginable, Target hopes consumers will “return [the] bag to a participating store for recycling.”
Useful, but not exactly big news. Who hasn’t used a grocery bag to line the inside of a small waste basket? Or walked the dog and used the plastic grocery bag to pick up and carry the poop. Ho-hum.
Things start to get interesting, however, when the creativity of our consumer nation is called upon and the question of how to reuse plastic bags is answered with good, old-fashioned American ingenuity.
Did you know surfers use them to help put on wetsuits? Slip empty bags over each foot before pulling on the pant legs of the wetsuit. I’ve seen it in action and it works.
Commenters responding to a Consumerist.com post, How Many Ways Are There to Reuse A Plastic Shopping Bag, missed the surfing angle but came up with plenty of other ideas. “If you have kids who have a hard time putting on winter boots and ice skates, slip a bag over each stocking foot and the foot slides right into the boot,” wrote one. “A cover for a bike seat when you have to lock up in the rain,” wrote another.
Vomit receptacle, trash bag for the car, emergency rain bonnet, mini-drop cloth while painting, and plastic turban to hold hair while waiting for at-home dye jobs to set were also recommendations. Several respondents said they donate gently used plastic bags to non-profit thrift shops to be passed along to the next consumer. Now we’re talking.
One resourceful soul said he used the bags to remove a “rotting possum carcass from under [the] house.” So, there you go. Add road kill and rodent removal to the list.
Of course, where there is excess material, there will be crafters.
On YouTube, there is a community of plastic bag crafters who demonstrate what can be done with a used bag and a little imagination. In a video for CRAFT, Cristen Andrews demonstrates how to cut the bags into strips, fasten them together and create large skeins of plastic bag “yarn”. Andrews makes hats and soda can cozies. Others design mats, handbags, totes, dog leashes, place mats, toilet paper holders, baskets and sandals. Basically, anything that can be crocheted can be made out of re purposed plastic bags.
Street artist Joshua Allen Harris had yet another idea. Harris used the bags to create fanciful monsters and animals on the streets of New York City. Using a variety of plastic shopping bags, the artist cut the bags to form balloon-like shapes and affixed them (temporarily) to subway grates on the sidewalks. When the trains roared past underneath the sidewalk, the air that was pushed up through the grates inflated the bags and the monsters briefly danced to life. This may not be a practical function, but it is a fabulous one.
Suggestions for reuse also get creative at TruckerPhoto.com., where the first suggestion in 63 Uses for Walmart Bags was make a purse … by sewing a bunch of them together.” Number 63 encouraged crafters to weave the bags into an inexpensive, water resistant “braided rug.”
Some of the best ideas from the TruckerPhoto site included: a splash-resistant cook book cover; pillow stuffing, cat-litter waste removal, a foot prophylactic for use while trying on shoes at a yard sale, protecting a plaster cast while taking a shower; covering a parked car’s mirrors and wiper blades in winter to keep them free of ice and snow, and slipping them over the blades on a ceiling fan while dusting to prevent accumulated dust from drifting down.
The post also suggested swiping the magnetic strip of a well-worn credit card across a plastic bag when an ATM won’t “read” the card. “Not sure why this one works but it does,” said the anonymous author.
Someday soon, however, as reported by WalletPop in the Vanishing America series, plastic bags may be a thing of the past. Future generations will be left to wonder what those unmapped islands of plastic are floating in the ocean, and kids will have no point of reference for the phrase, “paper or plastic?” Until that day, however, waste not, want not.
By Bonnie McCarthy
Police say a man with a history of alleged bank robberies hit a Bank of the West Tuesday at Valley View Boulevard and Imperial Highway in La Mirada. He’s been dubbed the “bubble wrap Bandit.”
So does he wrap his face in bubble wrap to disguise himself or something? Or perhaps he nervously crushes bubble wrap while awaiting his cash? (We can attest that this is a good, drug-free tool for dealing with anxiety.) That would be cool. But no.
He got his nickname because he was carrying an envelope lined with bubble wrap during at least one of the crimes. That is both totally lame and not very helpful. The point of a nickname is to help people identify the alleged perpetrator, and it seems unlikely this guy is going to be carrying around that bubble wrap lined envelope anymore.
This is reminiscent of the recent “Balding Bandit” who had a surprisingly decent head of hair .
The suspect is described as Hispanic or Samoan, 35-40 years old, about 5 feet 11 inches and 220 pounds, and he’s been seen driving away in a red car.
Police say he robbed another bank in South Gate on July 22, and banks in Bell Gardens on June 14 and on Nov. 25 of last year.
If you see anyone suspicious and in possession of bubble wrap, call Detective Manuel Flores, 562-902-2976.
By J. Patrick Coolican,
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