Yes… there really is a National Bubble Wrap Day!
Also known as Bubble Wrap Awareness Day, it is celebrated annually on the last Monday of January. (In 2026, that’s 26th January.) It acknowledges the joy of popping the bubbles, its function in protecting fragile items, and its history as an invention.
Although Bubble Wrap has been around since the 1960s, the celebration day was created in America in 2001 by Jim Webster of WVNI Radio in Indiana who unwrapped some new equipment live on air and people loved the sound of the popping!
Bubble Wrap was originally invented in the mid-1950s when two engineers, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, joined two shower curtains together which created a smattering of air bubbles. They thought it would make good textured, 3D plastic wallpaper. Needless to say, it failed to attract customers! After this, they tried to sell it as greenhouse insulation.
Originally named Air Cap, the product evolved into Bubble Wrap in 1961 and was used by IBM as shipping protection for their early computers. The rest, as they say, is history! For decades, Bubble Wrap has been the go-to material for keeping fragile items safe during transit – although there are many more alternatives on the market these days.
Something else that Bubble Wrap is famous for is the therapeutic pastime of popping the bubbles. Many people find it relieves stress, whether from the sound of the popping, or from the ‘challenge’ of making sure that every bubble is popped.
Some years ago, a local teenage girl had a fall resulting in a suspected broken ankle. The attending paramedics lifted her onto her feet and asked her to put the weight on the ankle to test if it was broken. She happened to stand on a piece of Bubble Wrap as she did this, and the loud POP made the paramedics’ faces turn white – they thought it was the sound of her bone snapping!
You can imagine their relief when we all realised it was just a piece of stray Bubble Wrap on the floor!
Ways to observe Bubble Wrap Day…
- Use some bubble wrap.
- Create an art project with bubble wrap.
- Recycle some bubble wrap by donating to a local organization.
- Learn more about innovative ways to use bubble wrap.
- Use #BubbleWrapDay when posting on social media.
