Team of Cal Poly Students Hopes to Inspire Industry with Sustainable Packaging Project

A team of Cal Poly students is hoping to inspire change by showing industries how to avoid using tough-to-recycle plastics in packaging.

The team’s Sun Ease product, an imaginary sunscreen packaged with sustainable paperboard, has been recognized with awards from both the WorldStar Student Awards and the Paperboard Packaging Alliance.

“We hope that the industry would adopt this,” said Joel Flores, an Industrial Technology & Packaging (ITP) student involved in the project. “It’s a paperboard carton on the outside and then paperboard on the inside too, so it’s kind of a new idea.”

The project started in the winter quarter of 2023 as part of the ITP 408 class (Fiber-Based Packaging).

Emma Wanon measures her team’s graphics while creating sustainable packaging for a sunscreen product. (Photo/Pat Pemberton)

The team consisted of members Flores (fourth-year ITP major), Katie Rash (ITP ‘24), Eva Lee (ITP ‘24), Coby Chuang (BFA ‘23), and Emma Wanon (BFA ‘23).

This carton-in-a-carton project not only earned multiple prestigious awards but also exemplifies the spirit of the Cal Poly Learn by Doing motto and the collaboration between majors.

Concept and Design

Sunscreen packaging has many different components, such as squeeze caps, tubes, and outer packaging. There are also many different types of sunscreen, such as solid, aerosol, and liquid.

Sun Ease was designed for liquid, ointment, and gel sunscreen. It was marketed for children with information about sustainability, Rash said.

The paperboard packaging contains Taylor the Turtle on the front of the packaging with the description of the sunscreen. The back contains the ultraviolet (UV) stickers with the directions involving Taylor.

“We wanted to do something that’s usually not possible with paper,” Rash said. “That’s where the idea of liquid sunscreen came from. Also, we wanted to do something with education, specifically for kids. That’s how the two ideas came together.”

ITP Lecturer Irene Carbonell advises the award-winning team, which includes, second from left, Joel Flores, Eva Lee and Katie Rash. (Photo/Pat Pemberton)

Not only does the carton packaging appeal to the younger audience, but it also makes it fun to apply, encouraging children to use it.

“We wanted to include these stickers that you can put on, and then you put sunscreen over it, and it changes color,” Rash said. “Once the sunscreen starts to wear off, then it changes back. It’s very visual so the kids know exactly when to put more sunscreen on.”

Background

Flores, Rash, and Lee were part of the structural design team, and Chuang and Wanon were part of the graphic design team.

Since Chuang and Wanon are not ITP majors, they were enrolled in a BFA class that collaborated with the ITP class.

The ITP majors worked specifically on packaging science, while the BFA students worked on designs, but they each helped each other by learning about the other majors’ tasks.

“In that particular quarter, the project is to tackle the prompt that the PPA throws out to the students every year,” stated Flores. “All the students were working on the same thing, and the professors’ role was great. We’re doing concept after concept after concept, showing to them getting feedback and good feedback, sometimes hard feedback, but they’re there to make sure that you’re making forward progress the whole time.”

Javier de la Fuente, ITP Associate Professor and Area Chair, and ITP lecturer Irene Carbonell advised the ITP course, while Linh Toscani, Art and Design assistant professor, taught the BFA class.

Awards and Recognition

The team won the 2024 WPO World Packaging Organization WorldStar Student Bronze Medal, which placed them third overall. Additionally, they won the Gold Medal for the Health & Personal Care Category and the Bronze Medal for Marketing Appeal.

Students worked on their sustainable packaging in an ITP lab. (Photo/Pat Pemberton)

The WorldStar Global Packaging Awards is considered the most important and prestigious student packaging contest in the globe.

The team was notified mid-summer 2023 that they placed among the top three in the Paperboard Packaging Alliance’s (PPA) Student Design Challenge, which led to them being flown to San Diego in October 2023.

“It was a really cool opportunity for all of us, we were able to meet different professionals in the field, specifically a paperboard, which was awesome, and to be able to show off the work that we had done,” Rash said. “I think that was personally my favorite award that we won so far because the industry responded to what we had made.”

The award-winning designs.

The team won the second-place award and the people’s choice award at the 2023 Fall Paperboard Packaging Council Meeting and Leadership Conference.

The Paperboard Packaging Alliance is a collaborative effort between the American Forest and Paper Association and the Paperboard Packaging Council. Their goal is to highlight the advantages of paperboard packaging and products in design and selection.

Future

The team is done working on the project, but they hope this idea will be taken further.

“I feel like it’d be cool if it were adopted, and that’s the cool part about presenting it to the professionals,” stated Rash. “I think they were receptive to that as far as our specific project goes.”