I received a new hard disk from PB Tech today and was very pleased to see that they did not wrap it in bubblewrap - instead they have found a replacement which seems to be a piece of thick brown paper cut into a honeycomb pattern and then has each alternate piece of the pattern pushed up or down:

There is an inner piece of white paper that is probably to prevent the honeycomb pattern from catching on anything.  It was in a cardboard box with more scrunched up brown paper to fill it out.  So their entire packaging is now paper and cardboard - completely recyclable.  So a big thumbs up to PB Tech - everyone else will now have to catch up.