Tuesday, December 20, 2011

popcorn = eco-friendly packaging material!

my husband received a package a few weeks ago that was packaged in popcorn.  i thought this was a brilliant alternative to those pesky Styrofoam "peanuts" that most things are shipped in.  popcorn is cheap, easy to use, and won't clutter up our landfills.  the only downside to using popcorn as packaging material is that the natural oils could damage or discolor paper products.   if you use minimal amounts of oil to barely coat the kernels, this shouldn't be a problem.


pour each batch of popped popcorn into a brown grocery bag to cool.  it may be tempting, but do not add butter or salt :)


once the popcorn has cooled, pour a layer to cover the bottom of the box.  place package on top of popcorn and pour more popcorn in and around all the open spaces to fill up the box.


**be sure to add a note explaining to the recipient that the popcorn should not be eaten.  it would however be perfect to make popcorn garland with.


give the planet the gift of biodegradable shipping material this holiday season.... use popcorn.  

2 comments:

  1. What a great idea! I actually have a ton of stale popcorn kernels I could use for this - and I'd put them in my air popper, using no oil at all! Too bad I've already sent my big package to MN - although I DID recycle packing materials from a box that was shipped to me!

    Keep the good ideas coming! Annie

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  2. the two packages that i had to send out were packaged with recycled packing material as well Annie. the only popcorn i had in the house was of the microwave 'movie theatre butter' variety... of course :). i do love this idea though and will be shipping all my future packages in my favorite snack.

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