 Hi, on MPI. All right, this week's Ion MPI is from a Scotch brand. Lady Aida, what is this week's Ion MPI brought to you by DigiKey? I'm glad you asked. So this is by 3M Scotch, and it's the Cushion Lock Protective Wrap and Dispenser. So Cushion Lock is the trademark name. And it's a really great timing, because Mr. Lady Aida, and I had been talking about sustainable packaging. And then this popped up on digiKey.com slash new, which I strongly recommend. I get really good ideas there, not just for MPI, but for products in addition. And this is a two-parter. So there is this metal dispenser, and then there is the reel of die-cut paper that you buy separately. The dispenser you only have to buy one of. And then the die-cut reel of paper you get multiple times. As you see, when you yank on the paper, it sort of expands into this hexagonal grid. So you could buy the paper. I think it comes in both 20-foot and 1,000-foot reels. DigiKey's just stocks 1,000-foot reels, because it's expecting that you're going to do a lot of shipping. And this image from 3M shows it very nicely. And it's designed for shipping, packaging, and storing. And then this is a close-up of the dispenser. You don't have to use a dispenser, but especially if you're using the 1,000-foot reel, it's pretty heavy. So it is recommended. I'll say this. Now that I've unpacked it and used it, you should use the dispenser. Wisdom there for you from Mr. Ladyeta. OK, so traditionally what people have been using for the last few decades for shipping and packaging, and there's more e-commerce than ever, is foam peanuts. These are very familiar styrofoam peanuts. Or now they're made of a foam material that's compostable or sometimes water soluble. Or bubble wrap is really common. This, of course, comes in big bubble, small bubble, double captive bubble, anti-static, et cetera, multiple variations as shown here in this lovely image from Wikimedia. But the problem with the packing peanuts and the bubble wrap is they're really big. This is how our, we buy from a local bubble wrap manufacturer here in New York, and so they have a truck that comes around and delivers it. So it doesn't have to go more than a couple blocks. But still, these are really big to store. Even if you get ones that are recyclable, there's just a lot of space required to store them. And if you are shipping them, if you don't live a couple blocks from a New York City packaging manufacturer, you have to ship it to you, and that's a little bit wasteful. And of course, the packing peanuts are also gigantic, even if they're stored in a compressed format. There is, from companies like Sealed Air and others, and if you buy from online, sometimes you see these sort of pillowy, large fill shapes. You buy it flat on a reel again, and then there's this little machine, which uses a compressor, either internal or external, and it blows up the pillows for you as you need them. And so the storage and shipping of them is not as difficult, but you need that compressed air machine. And there's also bubble wrap ones that basically make bubble wrap by injecting air instantaneously just before you need it. But again, you need to buy the machine. The machine is not cheap, and it can be pretty loud as well. So what I thought was nice about this is it kind of has the storage and shipping ease of the uninflated bubble stuff, but has the poofability of bubble wrap. So it kind of doesn't require that machine. And of course, it's made out of 100% recycled paper, and it's easily recyclable because it's just craft cardboard paper. So I think it kind of has the three things that I think is really great in a sustainability-friendly packaging material, easy to store, easy to ship, doesn't require extra equipment or maintenance, and does the job and is recycled and recyclable. These are some in-use images showing what it looks like. If you buy the gigantic roll, and as you pull it, it expands. And then what's neat is on the inside, it's hacks, but there's these little teeth. And the teeth, they're not sharp enough to cut or damage any material that you're wrapping in. But it grabs against itself, which means that you can wrap it into this nice ball, and you get this volume fill, which is a struggle that with some sustainable packaging, I've seen the crinkled paper-style packaging. It's very heavy, and it's very dense, and so it's recyclable and it's void-filling, but it adds so much weight that now you're using more fuel to ship, whereas I think that this is very lightweight, like a honeycomb shape, but it sticks together, and it gives you that fluffiness. So there's just a couple more photos from Scott showing it in action. And if you're like, wow, this seems really familiar, it is because Digike actually has used, this stuff just came out like a month ago, but historically for the last few decades, they've used a similar product called Giammi, which is much thinner, but cats really love it, and this was not an excuse to put in photos of cats. I think it was. I really wanted to add some cat photos to this ironing PI, but this stuff is good, but it's very thin, and you see it doesn't have those teeth that interlock onto each other, which gives it that void fill. And so while this stuff is good for delicate small things, I think that the cushion lock is from 3M is going to be better for void filled, big cushioning requirements, and you won't need nearly as much of it. And this is good timing for us, because we've been thinking about sustainability as our sustainability page on Adafruit.com slash sustainability. Yeah, and just one thing I want to mention too is when you're shipping thousands of packages a day and you're coming up with solutions for sustainable packaging, one of the things that's tough is we experiment with some of the different packaging materials. When you use something and it doesn't work out, you have to overnight a replacement to a customer, and there goes your carbon. There it is. So you have to find things like we've tried this mushroom packaging, we're playing around with it. And if it's humid or it rains, it kind of melts a little bit. There's a lot of things that are challenging, but this is looking pretty good. So this might be one of the things that we consider. DigiKey has a sustainability page as well, and you can see their history and their environmental impact and some of their environmental certifications as well. Yes, this is a great timing for us. And I picked up, we all show this on the front camera in a moment. Both these things are stocked and sold, the dispenser and the reels are stocked and sold by DigiKey. I will say they're quite heavy. I don't recommend overnight shipping, but ground shipping worked great and I got it in three days from DigiKey to the East Coast. And then this is the demo. And so one of the neat things is you can adjust the tension on this wheel here, and it'll make it easier to pull or not, because you need some. Yeah, as you pull it, it expands. And what I like about this, because I used, so I was, all of the shipping department and Lady and it was all the kidding department, when Native Fruit was just two people. And I wish I had this back then, because what I like is you could do this and then it's easy to tear off. Oh wow, it just rips instantly. It just rips off. And I feel like I could ship fast, but I feel like I would have been able to ship faster. Yeah, and that's the same, again, the volume of bubble wrap. Yeah, it doesn't require power and it doesn't require proprietary air tech. And this is recyclable materials. So for the inside of stuff, yeah, so for the inside of stuff, I think this is a pretty good choice and we're gonna be experimenting with it. One of the things that we're gonna probably need to do too is give customers a choice of if they want very sustainable stuff. The pricing isn't there yet, but they could add like a dollar to the shipping cost if they want to and support some types of packaging material. And it'll be a very special and specific thing that we have on our side, but that's one of the ideas. But I like this as someone who has shipped hundreds of thousands of packages. And actually it's another thing, in the write up I highlight, it's good for single person businesses because again, it doesn't require a compressor, it doesn't require power, it doesn't require a $4,000 air injector. And also if you have a small workspace, like I started Adafruit out of a dorm room, I didn't have space for bubble, I couldn't store one of those bubble wrap rolls, but this is actually very small and easily storeable. But it's also fast and affordable and easy to use for a warehouse worker. So we're gonna try this out in our shipping. And some folks have very specific companies that they use and some that they don't. So some folks don't like ULINE, this is not from ULINE. It's not from ULINE. And that is one of its selling features. Okay. Next week's UNMPI. UNMPI.