Ryan ChartrandThree Cal Poly programs have launched a program that has students working with major companies to deal with environmental issues facing the packaging industry.
Cal Poly’s industrial technology department in conjunction with the Orfalea College of Business and the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences started Cal Poly’s Consortium on Packaging Science and Technology to offer research and development services to an impressive list of companies, including Microsoft and Safeway, to design packaging materials that are sustainable and eco-friendly.
“One of the issues of sustainability is what happens after whatever’s in the package is utilized and you’ve got the packaging left over. Where does it go?” said industrial technology chair Louis Tornatzky, a founder of the program.
“There are different options: you can throw it in the dumpster and it goes in a landfill. And maybe, you think, it can then just go away, that there’s nothing left after five years,” he said. “But what we’re finding with historical packaging is that stuff that went in the dump a hundred years ago is still pretty good. This program is using various research techniques to understand if these materials are biodegradable, are sustainable.”
Participating companies pay the university an annual fee in exchange for these services, which range from sustainable initiatives and analysis of current products toactual packaging development.
According to Keith Vorst, assistant professor of industrial technology, the purpose of the program is to advance the use of alternative, greener materials, as well as develop packaging that uses less materials.
“For example,” Vorst said, “you go out and buy a Microsoft mouse. We look at designing packages that use less materials to ship that mouse or use materials that is recycled or biodegradable.”
The group is led by Tornatzky, Vorst and Jay Singh from the industrial technology department as well as Wyatt Brown from the horticulture and crops sciences department.
The consortium will focus on four projects in its first year. Tasks include analysis and evaluation of packaging materials set for distribution by the participating companies as well as development of single and multi-layer films for modified atmospheric packaging.
One such project is known as life-cycle inventory, where industry partners send in proposed packaging solutions and the teams, through various software programs and research techniques, will pick the proposals apart and deliver an estimate on that package’s sustainability performance.
Another project deals with how best to use radio frequency identification (RFID), a receiver/transmitter used to monitor packaging objects in transit. RFID tags, which can be smaller than a grain of rice, can hold more information than barcodes and give companies and researchers a clearer understanding of where these materials go after a product’s use.
This program marks the first time Cal Poly has launched this type of joint public-private enterprise and substantial benefits for the university and students.
“This will make the students involved imminently hire-able, hot commodities,” Tornatzky said.
“Having this consortium is a real coup for us because we’re much more nationally visible and we may be actually solving significant real problems that affect all of us.”
Cal Poly is not the only benefactor of this program. The 12 participating companies also get substantial R&D work for significantly less money, as well as access to a pool of potential student hires and early access to results.
“These companies get research done at a very inexpensive rate compared to hiring an outside consulting firm,” Vorst explained. “They can outsource at a much cheaper rate while supporting education.”
The consortium program, though only in its first year, is expected to grow in size and scope.
According to Tornatzky, with the benefits inherent for the university and industry leaders – as well as our physical environment – more companies are already looking to get involved.
“This is an innovation for Cal Poly. I think we should do more of this,” he said. “We should be working with industry in ways that they’re enhanced, we’re enhanced, the world’s enhanced.”