Once there was a time when shipping a fragile item involved bits of cardboard, newspaper, and tissue paper, in addition to tape and a box.
But no more! Now there are the plastic wonders of bubble wrap and shipping peanuts.
(Where could a thread like this go?)
Yes, but what do you ship those in?
bubble wrap!!! I LOVE bubble wrap!!!
Yes, but what do you ship those in?
A black plastic garbage bag. At least once a month a customer on my route gets one of these- the garbage bag is covered in clear tape too. I asked the lady what on earth is this once when I delivered one and she laughed and said- bubble wrap for packing. She sells a lot on e-bay.
One of the coolest ideas I ever saw was, instead of using Styrofoam peanuts to pack stuff in, pop up some popcorn and use that instead. Itâs more environmentally friendly than Styrofoam, and if the parcel hasnât been too long in transit, the receiver can eat the packaging - no waste to the landfill.
djm
I work at a packaging company that sells boxes and peanuts, etc. A few weeks ago, some young kids came in to purchase a couple of industrial-sized bags of peanuts. Apparently they were going to use it to fill a friendâs car with peanuts - floor to roof. They were performing various hijinks on each other as part of some prank war.
The company I buy my sprouting tools and seeds from ships it packed in shipping peanuts made out of a corn product instead of plastic.
Instead of disposing of them in the garbage pail I put them in the yard and hosed them with water until they dissolved.
The company I bought my worms from (for my vermiculture) double packed the box of worms inside another box with shredded newspaper as an impact insulator.
The shredded newspaper went right into the vermiculture with the worms. If my vermiculture was bigger I might have shredded the boxes and put them in there too.
The local Walk for Autism use bubble wrap for a section of the walk.
The kids love it. VeryâŚummmâŚpoppy.
pastorkeith
Personally, Iâve gotten very fond of the cute little bags of air.
Peanuts are too prone to static issues.
PopcornâŚI have a problem with using food as packaging and corn products are getting expensive anyway.
I reuse all the bubblewrap and peanuts and air bladders that come into the shop, then move onto newspaper.
Peanuts are regularly available in the anti-static (pink) variety (same thing with bubble wrap, etc.). As someone mentioned earlier, another common variety of peanuts is made from corn starch which are biodegradable. I think they are even slightly cheaper than the regular polystyrene peanuts (oil is more expensive then corn in packaging). The only downside to corn starch peanuts is that they are softer than polystyrene peanuts so I wouldnât use them with heavy items.
I like the idea of popcorn for packaging, but Iâm reminded of the pillar-box (postbox) where snails ate the gum from the stamps and IIRC ate the ink from the envelopes which resulted in missing addresses.
And our postman is very thin. Maybe I wonât use popcorn.
I see Izz already found this, or I would have said:
Hey IZZ!!! A Bubblewrap thread!!! 
This thread reminded me of the phrase âsmuggling peanutsâ but that has nothing whatsoever to with bubble wrap and other packaging materials.
Most places these days fill the boxes with air filled plastic rather than the old bubblewrap/polystyrene combo
This makes me want to pop some Bubble wrap.
Darn! You beat me to it! I wanted to post that! 
The best part of that âgameâ is the Manic âMust have more!â voice when you reset it.
Of course I saw itâŚitâs like my own personal âSpidey Senseâ hehe
I like to reuse the plastic bags you get when you go to the market for shipping.
One thing that bothers me about our new Internet lifestyle is that now everybody has individual items shipped to their homes in boxes full of plastic packing material. What a waste of energy.
Sorry, but are you concerned about the packing material, or the shipping to individualsâ homes? If itâs the shipping to individualsâ homes, what do you suggest as a viable alternative?
djm