It’s mostly—nothing. Just low-status, disposable skin that arrives protectively encasing the thing you actually want. And yet, latent in that mostly nothing is joyful potential. We’ve all stomped on it, savoring the popping sound, the tactile mini-explosions of air. We’ve all squeezed the bubbles free in our hands. Something in the body impulsively craves those sensations.

Like Post-It Notes, bubble wrap was born from failure. In 1957, two engineers were trying to make textured wallpaper for the Beat generation, something futuristic and three-dimensional. They heat-sealed two shower curtains together and got a weird sheet of air pockets nobody wanted to hang on a wall. For a few years, bubble wrap was an oddball substance without a clear function. It was exotic, made of stuff that, in those days, felt like science fiction.

It took a futuristic company to recognize what this new material could do. IBM needed to ship its first mass-produced computers in the early 1960s, and bubble wrap found its ideal purpose. Its strength comes entirely from trapped air that distributes risk, a lab accident that mimics the structural logic of good systems.

But of course, bubble wrap plastic comes from petroleum, from ancient creatures we figured out how to turn into this miraculous, clear material. It has been so good at its job that it taught us, in its small way, about the pitfalls of its own composition. We are still striving to return it to the Earth a little more quickly. A little more cleanly.

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Links:

• Academic study on popping bubble wrap to reduce stress - National Institute of Health

  
  

• The Accidental Invention of Bubble Wrap – David Kindy, Smithsonian Magazine, January 23, 2019

  
  

• Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day - Sealed Air Corporation

  
  

• 17 Unexpected Ways to Use Bubble Wrap - Emma Taubenfeld, Readers Digest

  
  

• Finding an alternative to bubble wrap: EcoEnclose

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

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[1]This vivid sentence comes from the Salida Smokestack's nomination form to enter the National Register of Historic Places, which it did on January 11, 1976.