MSU School of Packaging to Lead New NSF-Funded Center For Packaging End-of-Life Solutions

Michigan State University was the first school to offer a specialized degree program in Packaging Science, beginning in 1952, and the first to create a dedicated school for the field. It remains a top packaging school in the U.S.

C3PS is NSF’s first Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) dedicated to enhancing the impact of pre-competitive research in the field of packaging through collaborations among industry innovators, academic teams and government leaders. This initiative’s three primary objectives are:  

• Conduct high-impact research in packaging to address the shared needs of companies of various sizes.
• Strengthen the United States' global leadership in the advancement of innovative packaging technology.
• Develop a highly skilled workforce in the manufacturing sector.

“This center is an exciting inflection point, not only for the SoP but also for the discipline of packaging,” said Laura Bix, Ph.D., interim director of the MSU School of Packaging. “Although interdisciplinary collaboration and engagement with external stakeholders has long been a strength for the SoP, the recognition and support of NSF will take these relationships and the visibility of their results to a whole new level.”

C3PS will work to address the end-of-life issues associated with packaging materials through pre-competitive research that will strengthen U.S. manufacturers on the global stage.Michigan State UniversityCircular Packaging Solutions

The center, a partnership between MSU (as the lead site) and Western Michigan University (as the partner site), with professors from six other U.S. universities as collaborators, will operate under the directorship of Muhammad Rabnawaz, Ph.D., an associate professor in MSU’s School of Packaging.

“C3PS seeks to advance the science and engineering of ‘cradle-to-cradle’ packaging, where plastic, paper and hybrid packaging materials are designed to integrate with their eventual disposal systems,” said Rabnawaz. “C3PS researchers envision a circular packaging economy that builds this thinking into the manufacturing process so that packaging materials aren’t discarded – they’re reused, recycled or biodegraded.”

The center’s work will focus in two main areas:

• Plastic: research will focus on developing safe, zero-waste plastic packaging solutions by designing recyclable and biodegradable plastics. This development will function alongside improvements to existing recycling technologies, creating cost-effective methods for reducing plastic waste.
• Paper and paper-plastic hybrids: research will focus on developing safe, recyclable and biodegradable paper and paper-plastic hybrid materials. Increasing circularity will require new recycling methods for emerging hybrid products, developing recyclable paper additives and finding ways to create consumer-ready products from recycled paper.

“By advancing new material development and disposal systems, C3PS will enable both upstream and downstream innovations that U.S. industry can scale and adapt,” said Rabnawaz.

A Multidisciplinary Approach

The C3PS mission is centered on collaboration across the packaging value chain, tapping into the expertise of 24 cross-disciplinary faculty members from eight U.S. universities. The center will connect experts in packaging, materials science, AI and predictive modeling, biodegradation, manufacturing, recycling, regulatory science, and social sciences. The center collaborates with global experts as advisors to ensure that its pre-competitive research has a significant global influence.

By engaging graduate and undergraduate students from eight universities in the research process, C3PS will also develop an in-demand workforce by providing training to future packaging professionals.

Rabnawaz envisions C3PS as a national center of excellence for packaging end-of-life solutions. He and his team intend to expand the center by increasing the faculty size as well as the industry membership over the next few years, he said.