Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day

Bubble Popping Lots of fun things to do here.

Fans of Bubble Wrap Facebook Groups

Twitter Bubble Wrap

Pure Popping Fun

A 2012 Bubble Calendar

Send a Virtual Bubble ECard

Crafty Bubble Wrap See Pic -photo courtesy of Daisy Yellow

In 1960 Fielding and Chavannes founded the Sealed Air Corporation which soon began manufacturing and perfecting the bubble wrap as it's know today. Back in the Sixties however the handmade newly made bubbles had problems with air containment. It seems the sealing was inferior and bubbles deflated rather quickly.

Back to work they went, looking for ways to increase bubble time. It was then they and their team made a machine that would do it for them and found by adding a special coating outside the bubbles they stayed inflated longer. However they eventually found that a seal inside the bubbles keep them long lasting and allow them to be reused over and over, thus minimizing the impact to the environment.

Sealed Air also holds a Young Inventor's Contest annually, encouraging students in grades six to eight nationwide to create a new use for Bubble Wrap.The top three winners receive a savings bond ranging from $3,000 to $10,000 and a trip to New York
In 1993 Al Fielding and Marc Chavannes were inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame.

Bubble wrap starts as polyethylene (plastic) beads close to the size of a pea, which in turn goes into a long cylinder chamber that heats up. The plastic beads melt into a liquid that's squeezed out of the cylinder onto two stacks of plastic film. One layer is wrapped around a drum with holes in it, suction is applied drawing the melted plastic into the holes that forms the bubbles. The second layer is heat sealed over the first layer sealing the air in the bubble chambers.

Problems with this one layer technique arose, think of a balloon that will lose it's air over the course of several days, so did the original bubble wrap. Eventually yet another layer was added to contain leaking. However the method of coating the inside of the bubbles is a trade secret known only to Sealed Air.

This piece of performance art, entitled "Ghost of Versailles" was discovered via G's exciting and informative blog, Doves Today. As G describes it, "Performance artist Tim Dey has recreated the "Ghost of Versailles" as white-wigged and white-powdered aristocrats of the court of King Louis XVI of France, using bubble-wrap for materials. That's right - their costumes are made of bubble-wrap, plastic hose, water bottles and plastic wrappers."

To honor those great inventors and pay tribute to a fun and noisy holiday. Grab some bubble wrap and start popping! Why not have some fun ,take it to the office and entertain (annoy) your co-workers. Give some to a child and watch hours of popping fun, even use it as an inexpensive stress reliever! Get to popping people!.