environmental & intl. development portfolio
investigating alternatives to polystyrene trays

Project in the Olin College Sustainable Design Lab Timeframe: Fall 2008 Location: Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Needham, MA (USA) Key competencies: Sustainable Design, Life Cycle Analysis

From the project paper executive summary:
“Across the US, school cafeterias serve meals on polystyrene (Styrofoam) lunch trays. As a result, millions of these trays enter the waste stream daily and are either landfilled or incinerated. The environmental and human health concerns associated with the manufacturing and use of polystyrene are considerable, and organizations around the nation have begun to rally against its use. Our study describes three alternatives to the conventional 5-compartment Styrofoam lunch tray, taking the Needham, Massachusetts public elementary school cafeterias as a model system. When considering overall sustainability of the alternative food service options, environmental, financial, and social impact must be taken into account. To this end, user-research and ideation based on eco-design strategies generated three possible solutions: 1) biodegradable trays made from sugarcane bagasse, 2) sturdy plastic trays with a high-efficiency dishwasher in each school, and 3) sturdy plastic trays with a single high-efficiency dishwasher that travels from school to school via truck every day. Lifecycle impact assessments (LCAs) using Okala single factor analysis confirmed that any of our three proposed systems would have less environmental impact than disposable Styrofoam trays. While a reusable option would be least impactful, current infrastructural challenges might mean that the easily-implemented biodegradable trays would be the favored choice. Financially, these alternatives are also viable. Switching to the bagasse trays would amount to about $14 more in lunch expenses per student per year, while initial investment in either of the reusable options would be paid back within 2 years.”

My involvement in this project started when Theresa Edmonds, a student at Olin College, and I were approached by two Needham residents who are very active in many of the town’s Green initiatives to continue and elaborate on some of their initial environmental research on the impact of polystyrene trays. Approaching this kind of problem from an engineering and design perspective was seen as extremely beneficial and, therefore, we took on the project as a semester long independent research project at the Olin College Sustainable Design Lab.

Working on a sustainable design project of this scale was extremely exciting, providing exposure to a number of tools and concepts which will be very useful in future design projects. Scale was important to consider in this project, as there were a number of different important stakeholders that we had to take into account when designing solutions for the problem. One particular skill that I became familiar with while working on this project was using life cycle analyses for environmental assessment. Furthermore, we were exposed to a number of sustainable design strategies and concepts, introduced through a range of published literature and put into practice during numerous ideation and brainstorming sessions when attempting to find solutions for the problem.

Another exciting aspect of this project was its tangibility. We were able to conduct a brief user analysis at an elementary school in Needham, where two classes were selected to test out a new biodegradable tray option during one lunch period. We then talked to the students after lunch to get feedback on the tray and to listen and discuss their ideas relating to the project in general. The insightfulness of the feedback coming from the children, in addition to their true enthusiasm for promoting environmental sustainability within their school community was truly inspiring.

After having completed the initial phase of our research, in addition to conducting environmental analysis and constructing solutions based on our findings, we are now in a phase where we plan to present these solutions to the various different stakeholders involved in the school cafeteria tray system. We plan to work together with the local community to reiterate on the design of our system solutions and to figure out a plan for their eventual implementation.

 

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