Shipping glass has always been a challenge, as the carton materials used are meant for bulk pallet handling, where cartons are tightly packed together on a pallet and remain on the pallet during handling, instead of single-piece shipments. These packing methods save space and weight, but offer very little protection during parcel transit as the boxes are transferred from conveyer belts to the truck, and from the truck to your doorstep. While parcel carriers often take great care in handling these packages, breakage does occur as the glass items inside the standard carton box simply don’t have enough padding to absorb vibrations and collisions.The most common option to protect against breakage is to place the carton of glassware in a bigger carton box, and fill the space with over packing materials, which acts as a cushioning material to absorb normal vibrations and collisions during transit.

 There are many kinds of over packing materials in use today, including but not limited to:air pillows, expandable foam, crosslink foam, void fillers.