Origin of Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day
The last Monday of January was designated Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day after Spirit 95 Radio, a radio station in Bloomington, Indiana, received a package of microphones wrapped in bubble wrap. Sounds of bubble wrap popping as the package was being unwrapped was inadvertently broadcast out over the airwaves. Radio listeners loved it. That was Monday, January 29, 2001.
Bubble wrap was invented in Hawthorne, New Jersey in 1957 when two inventors, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, were attempting to create a three-dimensional plastic wallpaper. The wallpaper idea failed. Then it was marketed as greenhouse insulation. A year later its use for protective packing was discovered. The first user was IBM for shipping its 1401 computer.
Fielding and Chavannes were inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 1993.
Digital
Click here for a popping app from Sealed Air Corporation (maker of BubbleWrap) and Lima Sky (apps designer).
Here’s another: Bubble Wrap — The classic stress reliever game
Bubble Wrap Stomp
Even dogs do it
Silent bubble wrap
A controversy arose in 2015 — Sealed Air induced a new, silent bubble wrap.
• “New Bubble Wrap is losing its pop” — CNN
• “Bubble Wrap company sparks online backlash after announcing revamped product without any pop” — Mirror
• “New bubble wrap loses its pop” — Over Sixty
Bubble wrap close up
• Celebrating Half a Century of Loud, Soothing Pops — New York Times
Sorry to take the fun out of this discussion but i’m well over bubble wrap. Here in New Zealand I have, until recently worked at ‘the border’ where I have observed the unpackaging of imports from mainly China. There’s more bubble wrap than product in their containers… Non – recyclable plastic sucks and is totally unnecessary. Pop or no pop.