Corvallis, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University say they’ve created a way to turn a common food byproduct into useful food packaging. A team led by Assistant Professor Jooyeoun Jung discovered used coffee grounds could be converted into a material that might eventually replace plastic wrap. “Flexible packaging, which is a film,” says Jung, “Or, from the film, then we can also make a pouch or a bag; especially targeting single-use plastics.”
The idea came from the Rural Development Administration in South Korea, which partnered with OSU on the project. Jung notes it aligns with previous OSU efforts to create “eco-friendly packaging” using apples and grapes, “We had biodegradable packaging, edible packaging, using all that waste.”
Researchers remove everything that makes coffee a delicious cup of joe, so all that remains is the usable cellulose. “We extract the coffee from the coffee beans,” says Jung, “But the coffee beans itself is a good source of cellulose materials that can be used for the packaging.” Of course, they had plenty of grounds to experiment with, “Our research is actually from the cafeteria in the university. So, we collected all the spent coffee grounds from the cafeteria.”…