Holiday Tip: Cushion Your Packages With Popcorn

As you prepare to pack and ship fragile gifts to your loved ones for the holidays, here's a sustainable alternative to bubble wrap and foam peanuts; popcorn! Economical, sustainable, and efficient, plain popcorn provides just as much cushion as plastic packaging materials do.

Even better: transport emissions will also be reduced, since popcorn is 60% lighter than paper. So go ahead and pop up some air-popped (you don't want grease getting on the packaged items!) unsalted, non-flavored plain popcorn and fill your holiday shipping packages with it. Drop a note in the box explaining to the recipients the benefits of popcorn packaging, and encourage them to scatter it outside for the birds and squirrels.

Comments (10)

This might be a bit of eco-balancing, but could you package the popcorn in gallon bags so it would be edible for humans upon arrival? It might work like those HORRIBLE air pillows I get in packages now. I'd be curious to try...

Other important thing: Only use air-popped popcorn.

I'd imagine you *could* put it in plastic, but stale popcorn isn't all that great.

@Cosmic Jester Good tip on air-popped only, don't want to get grease on the packaged items.

I'm imagining boxes being chewed open by various rodents. Or opening the boxes up to find various other critters inside...

Many pet food companies offer this option. It works great; I would just caution that it makes a HUGE mess--as long as your recipients are ok with cleaning it up, then go for it.

While I agree that popcorn is better than plastic or Styrofoam, it does seem wasteful to use perfectly good food for a non-edible purpose. Why not just use the paper waste from your shredder? I use this all the time for packing and/or shipping. It isn't heavy, easy to obtain, inexpensive (free!), doesn't attract the above-mentioned critters, and does a wonderful job if done right to protect items inside a box. Just make sure to completely surround the items inside the box.

@aftermath, well, I really like the very first suggestion in comments here: why not package the edible popcorn (of any sort) in little plastic bags or something and use them like air pillows? keeps away critters and helps the popcorn stay clean.

the kettle corn i buy or make doesn't get stale to the point that it's inedible for at least a few days (sadly, we've yet to go past a week since they just don't last that long), and since I usually ship with one of the 2-3 day options, I can't imagine it'll be inedible if we use it to pack. I'll have to try it :)

Hmm. I think using something around the house like shredded paper makes more sense. But it's a cute idea if you're sending to someone that likes to feed birds. (just seems like the use of food is wasteful if not)

If you're going to use plastic baggies, just inflate the zip-top variety (like Ziploc) and skip the popcorn alltogether.

Popcorn is lighter by volume than shredded paper, so it will make your package lighter, possibly reducing your cost to ship it.

In my experience, shredded paper is much messier than popcorn.

Using the popped popcorn to feed the backyard critters is a wonderful idea! It *is* an edible purpose. We feed them nuts, seeds, and stale bread anyway, so why not feed them the stale popcorn after it has been used for packaging? Double bonus!

Kathryn- I love this post. I have also used marshmallows to insulate baked goodies.

This is an old trick. My mom and aunt used popcorn to cushion my uncle's care packages when he was in Vietnam. They'd bake things and pack them with popcorn in coffee cans. (Yay for re-purposable packaging.) My mom sends packages to soldiers in Iraq now, and does the same thing. She says that they always love the popcorn, even if it is stale when it gets there!