Thanks to Amazon, buying things online has become one-click simple, but making sure that your precious cargo arrives in one piece gives vendors fits. Packing peanuts are environmentally toxic, wadded paper is imprecise, and bubble wrap—despite its fun—is an inefficient time waster. Enter ExpandOS, a new paper board packing material that can outshine styrofoam.

The ExpandOS system is comprised of a customized paperboard sheet material and an expander machine that rapidly cuts and folds the sheets into three-dimensional triangular structures. The ExpandOS sheets come in reams roughly the size of a box of copy paper, but when fed through the expander, pieces fly out like popcorn and a single ream can create enough widgets to fill a refrigerator box. Serrations on the edges of the structures help the pieces lock together creating a sturdy matrix around the special delivery.

>A single ream can create enough widgets to fill a refrigerator box.

ExpandOS has an undeniable kinetic charm, but how does it stack up to more traditional packing methods? According to ExpandOS CEO Jeff Boothman, his product is 20% less expensive than bubble wrap and up to 40% faster to use than foam-in-place packaging.

In addition to formal testing, the company sends skeptical potential customers a box containing a brick, coffee mug, and lightbulb—all natural enemies according to ExpandOS's inventor William Oliver—and so far have only had one broken mug reported. "We call the stuff paper cement," he says. "When you pile it out, things stay exactly where you put them."

It may not look like much, but each cut embodies clever design thinking. It's made from sustainably harvested paper pulp and is recyclable at the curbside, a rarity in the modern packing world. The "fingers" on the edge of the triangles act like locking mechanisms and prevent the migration of heavy objects to the bottom of the box in transit.

One ExpandOS's elegant features is it's ability to meet different technical requirements by changing the material's thickness. Triangles made from thinner paper can cushion bottles of olive oil from jolts while units made from heavy card stock can prevent a drill bit bound for an oil rig from piercing a shipping box.

ExpandOS has many technical and environmental benefits, but the product was born out of frustration and hunger, not altruism. Oliver, who previously designed machine tools for Ford and Mercedes, worked on a contraption to make molded paper pulp cubes, kind of like egg cartons. The system worked, but the bulky cubes weren't economically feasible to ship and the product flopped.

Oliver knew there had to be a flat pack solution and started experimenting with scissors, cardboard, and Elmer's to create what he calls a "gluey mess." Haunted by hunger pangs he daydreamed of a box of baked goods and was reminded of the slits in the pink boxes that lock the pieces together. He started reworking his design, eliminated the glue, and began developing a machine tool that could cut, fold, and lock millions of little paper triangles.

While he's happy with the product, Oliver is a process engineer at heart and is more excited by the consistency his invention brings to warehouses. "Traditional paper packing is very subjective—you might get a big gorilla who's gonna put eight sheets in or you could get a little person who had too much to drink the night before and they don't want to put anything in," says Oliver. "We did enough testing to tell companies exactly how much product to put in for a given task. There's a scientific aspect so you can tailor it to your needs and guarantee the results."

If you want to give a ExpandOS a shot, ready-to-use kits are available at Lowe's, Home Depot, U Haul, and Public Storage, and the ExpandOS website.