Professional shippers and innocent bystanders may rejoice, but others are up in arms about the announcement of a new form of Bubble Wrap designed not to pop, and thus also fail to create that distinctive sound we all know and love (or hate).

American company Sealed Air created iBubble Wrap with interlinked columns of trapped air rather than individual bubbles, allowing contents to squeeze over rather than bursting. Another advantage: unlike its traditional counterparts, this new version will be inflated on-site, making it cheaper and greener to ship to those using it for packaging on a mass scale. The company is also exploring alternative uses, as shown in some of the images here and reflecting the unusual origins of the material (it was designed as a wall covering then repurposed as packing material).

After outbursts on social media, Sealed Air stepped in to reassure consumers who enjoy alternative functions provided by bubble wrap, like scaring siblings or stress relief: “Fear not fans of ‪#‎BubbleWrap‬ and its famous pop! We are excited to expand our Bubble Wrap family to include iBubble Wrap, but the original version you love to pop isn’t going anywhere.”

Still, it is hard to imagine that if this new type works better it won’t naturally replace the original over time as more commercial users adopt and distribute it: “We want to protect what matters most to you, and a version of Bubble Wrap that doesn’t pop (less air loss means more long-lasting protection against damage during shipment) is just one of the ways we can do that.”

The post Pop-Free Bubble Wrap: Redesign Eliminates Noise (& Fun) first appeared on Gajitz.

Blunt branding tells you all you need to know about this product’s origins, history, purpose and thesis: boxed water is better for the environment and more cost-effective to boot.

Boxed Water is Better wastes far less space in shipping and allows flat-packed boxes to arrive on site to be filled rather than requiring full-sized but still-empty bottles to be delivered to the production plant.

Paper is naturally better than plastic as well, being easier to recycle and less harmful to the environment when people litter or otherwise improperly dispose of their waste.

On the shelves, the product really stands out against the competition, bold black text on a minimalist white background against the more colorful and complex designs associated with glass and plastic bottles.

While the most sustainable way to use water container is of course to employ reusable bottles, this at least provides a step in the right direction and a better alternative to plastic, particularly now that more and more cities are outlawing plastic bottle sales (smart business, too).

The post Boxed Water Is Better: Alternative to Plastic Makes Waves first appeared on Gajitz.

Fragile, Handle with Care and other messages are meant to remind mail carriers that things should arrive in the condition they were shipped, with this exception perhaps made to prove the rule.

Twisting, turning, bumping and dropping all help shape these perforated aluminum sheets, turning them into unique sculptures that reflect (light and) the way they were (mis)handled in transit.

The creators of Post Post put it thusly: “Inspired by the frivolous handling of packages sent through the postal system, these are aluminium canvases to be sculpted by the mail service. They are available on our webshop” (though limited to only 111 copies).

The accidental ‘making’ is in the movement – a process seen neither by seller nor buyer. “Upon ordering, we wrap and deliver the becoming artwork to our local post office in Oslo, Norway, where the rough journey ahead begins. As every sheet is handled differently in the mail, each Post Post is unique. We don’t have any control over how roughly the package is treated, so it might come out really crumbled or just slightly dented.”

The post This End Up: Rough Mail Handling Creates Unique Artworks first appeared on Gajitz.

If you grew up in a snowy area (and your parents wouldn’t spend money on another sled you’d just break anyway) you’ve probably experienced the sheer joy of sliding down a steep, snowy hill on a piece of cardboard. You probably also remember that piece of cardboard eventually getting town up and wet, and disintegrating before your weepy eyes. Lesson learned: cardboard + moisture + friction = frowny face.

Signal Snowboards and Ernest Packaging Solutions, however, teamed up to completely change that. They created a surfboard made of cardboard that doesn’t immediately become waterlogged and sink as soon as you put it in the water. Which is what happens, by the way, if you try surfing on a regular piece of cardboard. Trust us.

The core of the surfboard is made of lightweight but strong honeycomb cardboard. The honeycomb structure provides a strong base; after it’s sealed with a strong polyurethane polymer, it becomes as tough as wood. After it’s coated with a thin layer of see-through fiberglass, it becomes waterproof and can be sanded and waxed just like any other surfboard.

The idea of a paper surfboard might seems ludicrous, but a dedicated team came together to make it possible. It not only gets into the water and goes; it handles the waves like a champ.

The post Cardboard Surfboard Doesn’t Sink, But Does Carve Waves first appeared on Gajitz.

Disposable food packaging is an enormous environmental burden, and designers have been looking for a way to eliminate that burden for quite some time. As great as some of their ideas have been, none have seemed to find their way into the mainstream – or even onto the radar of most consumers. The Ooho might be just the thing to change that.

The Ooho is a bottle-less water bottle. More accurately, it is a blob of edible gel containing water and producing zero non-biodegradable waste. The membrane that holds the water is made of brown algae and calcium chloride, a mixture inspired by molecular gastronomy which works kind of like the membrane that holds an egg yolk in its shape.

Ooho was designed by students Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, Pierre Paslier, and Guillaume Couche. They formed the blobby water containers by first freezing water into spheres and then forming the membranes around the spheres. Each Ooho consists of a double membrane, which the inventors imagine could allow companies to insert labels between the two layers.

Of course, the perennial problem with edible packaging is how to keep it clean before it reaches the consumer. It would be pointless to wrap the Ooho blobs up in plastic just to avoid the plastic used in bottles, but a biodegradable solution shouldn’t be difficult to develop at some point.

Right now, the designers aren’t convinced that bottled water companies will immediately adopt this type of eco-friendly packaging, even though it is vastly less expensive than plastic bottles – each Ooho costs about two cents to make. But the team hopes that people will begin making the simple concoction at home instead of buying bottled water. The Ooho was a winner of the 2014 Lexus Design Award.

via: FastCo

The post Blobbled Water: Edible Membrane Eliminates Plastic Bottle first appeared on Gajitz.