Packing peanut haters unite: There are better options

What a waste, I think to myself every time I open a package and and a geyser of foam packing peanuts erupts. A waste of money, a waste of my time spent cleaning up the detritus, and a waste of space spent saving it to use again. Can't, I wonder, anyone find a better solution?

And the problem goes beyond my annoyance. Landfills are crammed with junk like the eternal packing peanut, although it has been banned in many landfills. Wisconsin, for example, banned the product from landfills in 1995. In 1999, the EPA estimated that around 1 part in 20 of landfill contents was polystyrene, which includes said peanuts.