Corporate America just doesn’t want us to have fun anymore, man. First, they took away our lawn darts. Now, Sealed Air Corp., the company that makes Bubble Wrap, is revamping its product to become something that—gasp!—won’t pop anymore. Sealed Air’s new product is eye-rollingly named iBubble Wrap, and will come in flat plastic sheets inset with air columns that the shipper fills with a custom-made pump, similar to what Amazon has been using recently. Those boring plastic sheets will, according to Sealed Air, take up about one-fiftieth as much space as those traditional giant rolls of bubble wrap we know so well. All that translates to lower costs and higher revenues for shippers, but decreased fun for the rest of us.
Fortunately, Sealed Air Corp. says it will continue to make Bubble Wrap, not that most companies will use it anymore. In recent years, the product has gone from about five percent of Sealed Air’s sales to a lowly three.