How Does Sealed Air Make Bubble Wrap?

Bubble Wrap has been protecting products and providing popping fun and enjoyment for years.  Have you ever wondered . . . How is bubble wrap made?

Sealed Air made this informational video for a girl fighting leukemia and didn’t intend for it to be a public release.  It went viral a few months ago, and is even seen on youtube.

Video transcript:

Hi Naomi, my name Is Louis. I’ve been told you want to know how bubble wrap is made.  The most fun part of my job is I get to do ( pop’s bubble wrap ) whenever I’d like.

First bubble wrap machine

First Bubble Wrap Machine originally made to produce wallpaper

Ok this is the first bubble wrap manufacturing machine that was built in Hawthorn NJ in 1957. This was originally built to produce wall paper, and thats a market that didn’t take off.  So thats when they found a use for it in packaging. Originally it was called Air Cap, as we know it today bubble wrap.

You saw the original machine, today 50 years later our machines are bigger, faster, and more automated.

Manufacturing Process

Well we first start off with different types of resin. The resins come in pellets. Each one of the resins has certain properties. The nylon that we use gives its strength.  We use a plexar resin that gives us the adhesive that we need in order to make the bubble, and the rest of the bubbles make the film that we use is what you actually see.

We vacuum the pellets into an extruder.  The extruder then melt the resins and then distribute it forming a film. Our extruders have temperatures between 450 and 512 degrees. We need that temperature in order to melt the resin to form the film.  The film in itself carries through a series of rollers and then as we get the thickness that we desire, it traps over a cylinder where we vacuum the film down and then trap the air. This is the cylinder that forms the bubble.  If you see this. They’re little holes that here we vacuum the plastic to form the shape of the bubble and the size that our customers need.

As the film goes through another series of rollers it cools it forms a bond thus having one piece with multilayers and the bubble that we like to pop.

Here we’ve made our bubble.  We have made a 48′ sheet of bubble here. The next thing that we do, is we start cutting it to size.  To cut it in the width, we’ll also perforate it similar to paper towels to the size that you need.

When the bubble wrap comes off the machine, we do our quality checks. We bag it. We send it to the warehouse ready for shipment for your use.

And that’s how its made Naomi, so enjoy your bubble wrap.