Learn the Fun Bizarre History of Bubble Wrap

Bubble wrap is so much more than just a sheet filled with capsules of trapped air.

At Premier Protective Packaging, we use bubble wrap to protect items during shipping, but the original intention for bubble wrap was much more decorative, and its current uses can even be therapeutic at times.

Let’s dive into the fun, bizarre history of bubble wrap.

The Beginning of Bubble Wrap

It was 1957—a time when Americans watched TV in black and white, and a quarter could get you a gallon of gas. It was this year that two men set their sights on creating the best textured wallpaper on the market.

To create the wallpaper, they pressed two shower curtains together to trap pockets of air. They even tried to create a machine that would create the plastic wallpaper, but with a paper backing.

In a twist of fate, the machine only produced plastic sheets that would later become what we know as bubble wrap.

While the fad of textured wallpaper never caught on, Alfred W. Fielding and Marc Chavannes didn’t let that discourage them. They later tried to market the material as greenhouse insulation, but that proved ineffective as well.

Finally, Fielding and Chavannes found their niche in protective packaging.

The computer giant IBM had recently introduced their 1401 unit, but didn’t know how to ship the delicate computer safely. Fielding and Chavannes offered bubble wrap as the solution, and soon, they were selling bubble wrap everywhere as the packing material we know and love today.

Bubble Wrap Today

It’s hard to imagine what life would be like without bubble wrap today. Any time one of your customers orders a product, you’ll most likely nestle it in a swath of bubble wrap. It’s a staple feature of any modern business that ships products.

Many of us also have fun memories of popping the bubbles as children (and sometimes as adults, too). A recent study actually shows that popping bubble wrap relieves stress by releasing muscle tension, much like jiggling your foot or tapping your fingers.

Both small and large businesses across the world trust bubble wrap to make sure items arrive at their destinations intact. As a national supplier of packing materials, we provide so much more than just bubble wrap sheets. We provide a way for companies to safely ship their items to retailers and customers.

Bubble Wrap in Business

Whether your company is B2B or B2C, you can count on our expertise to recommend the right packaging supplies for your industry.

For example, we provide anti-static bubble wrap to dissipate dangerous electrostatic discharge while shipping electronics.

Bubble wrap comes in different sizes depending on what you need to ship. Small bubble wrap is perfect for preventing scratches and scrapes. Large bubble wrap, on the other hand, protects items from impact damage during shipping.

We recommend using more than one size of bubble wrap to support your shipping needs. That way, items are protected both from scratches and impact damage during shipping.

The last thing you want is for your customers to open their boxes and discover that their order has been damaged during shipping. Bubble wrap has built a reputation for being a safe protective packaging product for more than 50 years. If your items arrive damaged, your customers won’t blame bubble wrap—they’ll blame your poor packaging skills.

Protect Your Packages with Bubble Wrap

Bubble wrap may have started as a fun wallpaper idea, but it has quickly become the product businesses rely on to protect their packages. Premier Protective Packaging is a national bubble wrap manufacturer that offers multiple bubble products. Call (616) 791-7400, or contact us online to request a quote.

This blog post has been updated.