On Tuesday, Cal Poly students participated in an event that hasn’t occurred in over 30 years – harvesting the university’s cork oak trees.
Cork Supply from Benecia, California was at Cal Poly to offer a unique perspective on sustainability and renewability, educating students on the usage of cork as an alternative to man-made materials.
“Cork is not about bottle stoppers anymore," said Cal Poly professor Matt Ritter. "It's about, so this material can be ground up and then reconstituted with natural resins and then turned into all kinds of products. It's being used for flooring, siding, all kinds of things. Now, clothing, they make the cloth material out of cork shoe soles.”
Cork oak trees grow best in Mediterranean climates, like the Central Coast.
After a tree has initially been harvested, it will take another nine years before the bark can be harvested again.
“Cork trees generally are ready for harvest around 35 years old or so and we'll harvest them every nine years, and what we'll do is after we harvest the tree, we'll write the last digit of the year that it was harvested," explained Greg Hirson, Cork Supply Global Director of Innovation. "So, you're there writing the last two digits, so the 13 and the 16 are the last times they harvested that section of the bark.”
Cork Supply will also travel to UC Davis to work with students to harvest the cork trees at that university.
