Sometimes progress comes at a steep cost. Sealed Air Corp., the company that invented Bubble Wrap and has sold it since 1960, is changing things up — and in the new version of its iconic product, iBubble Wrap, you won't be able to pop the plastic capsules. Sealed Air is making the change because shipping the pre-inflated Bubble Wrap takes up a lot of space — yes, Bubble Wrap has to be shipped, too — and the new version is delivered in flat sheets that online retailer and other customers will inflate at their warehouses, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Sealed Air almost discontinued Bubble Wrap a few years ago, leaving the market to imitators, because the bulk of the packages made it too expensive to ship more than 150 miles. The new iBubble Wrap takes up 1/50th of the space before it is inflated. With the rise of e-commerce, protective packaging material is big business, The Journal reports, hitting $20 billion in global sales in 2013, $2 billion of that bubble packaging. iBubble Wrap may help Sealed Air recapture more of that market, but does nobody care about the kids? (Or the older Bubble Wrap fanatics?) You can see the new Bubble Wrap in action in the Wall Street Journal video below. Peter Weber
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