Styrofoam Popcorn

[wimpy]

I need to get some of that styrofoam "popcorn" for packing and shipping fragile items.

I have been to the post office, Office Depot, and the recyclers. No luck.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

Edited October 1, 2008 by wimpy

[bunta71]

You can get anything on Loi Kroh Rd. About halfway down,just past Chiang Mai Saloon on the right...Fedex

[highonthai]

have you tried Ching mai plastics in wororot market?

They have everything for shops.

Edited October 1, 2008 by highonthai

[tom21]

they are used in bean bags. so i would look at furniture shops.

[wimpy]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check them out today.

[sylviex]

You can use real popcorn -- more environmentally friendly, I understand -- but would depend on where you're shipping to. Australia, for example, is extremely rigorous about disallowing alien seeds & other plant matter.

[wimpy]

Well, I tried Chiang Mai Plastic. They only have the tiny (expensive) foam balls for use in bean bags. The FedEx shop on Loi Kroh didn't have any either.

I was thinking of using real popcorn, but am shipping to the US and Australia. I doubt the Dept. of Agriculture would be happy about it.

Anyone else have any ideas?? Maybe the stuff doesn't exist here.

[Bill97]

Try to find a packing supply shop selling foam, plastic and cardboard products. One I have used and passed by recently seeing foam products coming out the door is on an unnamed road on my map but not hard to find. Going west on the super highway frontage road past Tesco/Lotus turn left on the first road past Lotus. That road goes into the north west corner of the moat but do not go that far. Just go to the second traffic light and turn left (left at the first light takes you into Lotus and the Kamtieng market) . The store building is the first one on the left. Go in and look around, I think somebody in there may speak English but probably not the first person you meet. If they do not have it, try DHL or UPS, the main offices, not the small branches. Good luck.

[sunnitimes]

Having moved internationally more times than I care to remember I can attest to the success of using paper rather than styrofoam popcorn to pack fragile items. I ave used packing paper, which is a bit heavier than newspaper, to pack crystal glassware and have never had a piece broken. What you are attempting to do is to provide cushioning but also to prevent movement as that is when breakage occurs.

By scrunching up the paper around the irregular surfaces of the object, and then wrapping it in a couple of layers of paper, and then placing it in a box where there is scrunched up paper in the bottom, sides and top so the object cannot move you should have a fairly secure packing. for really fragile items I have packed them in a box as above, and then packed (supended is a more accurate description) that box in a larger box with scrunched paper on the bottom, sides and top.

If weight is an issue, bubble wrap can be used to pad the sides of the box rather than paper.

Good luck