Bubble Wrap (originally Air Cap)
is a trademarked brand of
Sealed Air Corporation
Sealed Air Corporation is a packaging company known for its brands: Cryovac food packaging and Bubble Wrap cushioning packaging. It sold off its stake in Diversey Holdings in 2017. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, its c ...
that includes numerous
cushioning
Package cushioning is used to protect items during shipment. Vibration and impact shock during shipment and loading/unloading are controlled by cushioning to reduce the chance of product damage.
Cushioning is usually inside a shipping container ...
products made from
bubble wrap
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Bubble wrap is a pliable transparent plastic material used for packing fragile items. Regularly spaced, protruding air-filled hemispheres (bubbles) provide cushioning for fragile items.
In 1957, two inventors named Alfred Fielding a ...
.
The brand is produced by the Product Care division of Sealed Air.
Both the Bubble Wrap 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
Food packaging is a packaging system specifically designed for food and represents one of the most important aspects among the processes involved in the food industry, as it provides protection from chemical, biological and physical alteratio ...
industry.
History
Bubble wrap
__NOTOC__
Bubble wrap is a pliable transparent plastic material used for packing fragile items. Regularly spaced, protruding air-filled hemispheres (bubbles) provide cushioning for fragile items.
In 1957, two inventors named Alfred Fielding a ...
was invented in 1957 by engineers Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes in
Hawthorne, New Jersey. Fielding and Chavannes sealed two
shower curtain
A shower is a place in which a person bathes under a spray of typically warm or hot water. Indoors, there is a drain in the floor. Most showers have temperature, spray pressure and adjustable showerhead nozzle. The simplest showers have a ...
s together, creating a smattering of air bubbles, which they originally tried to sell as
wallpaper
Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so ...
.
When the product turned out to be unsuccessful as wallpaper, the team sold 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 year later (1961) that its usefulness in
protective usage was discovered.
As a packaging material, Bubble Wrap's first client was
IBM, which used the product to protect the
IBM 1401
The IBM 1401 is a variable-wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on October 5, 1959. The first member of the highly successful IBM 1400 series, it was aimed at replacing unit record equipment for processing data stored on pu ...
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
The ''Annual Bubble Wrap Competition For Young Inventors'' was hosted by Sealed Air from 2006 to 2008,
[ ] in which children were encouraged to design products made out of bubble wrap that had uses outside of the packaging industry.
Inventions 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.
References
{{reflist, 30em
Brands that became generic
Packaging materials
Products introduced in 1960