Packaging

Bubble wrap was first meant to be wallpaper. In 1957 two engineers sealed air bubbles between two shower curtains as a 3D wall covering, but the look never sold. It also flopped as greenhouse insulation — then in 1960 it found its calling: packaging cushioning.

Chemist Fredric Baur, whose Invention was the iconic Pringles tube Packaging, asked that his ashes be buried in a Pringles can. When he died in 2008, his family stopped at a drugstore on the way to the funeral to buy an original-flavor can and placed his remains inside.