Eideard

Scientists at Manchester University have found a new way to make egg boxes – out of chicken feathers. They used feathers rejected by a duvet and pillow company as a basic ingredient for a range of paper products, including festive wrapping paper.

At present, the vast majority of the 120,000 tonnes of feathers plucked from poultry in UK farms goes into landfill or is incinerated. However, under the method pioneered by Professor Chris Carr and colleagues, feathers from poultry are beaten, filtered and turned into a crude feather pulp.

The team have also been able to make plant pots that are far more biodegradable than traditional plastic pots. The researchers believe they may even offer enhanced fertilising properties as protein originally found in the feathers leaches into the soil.

Governments both sides of the pond have pointedly ignored the precepts of reuse and recycle for so long – this seems like an enormous discovery. Before the era of Reagonomics, studies and experiments like this were common. The only questions asked were the same you’d ask, today: [a] is it profitable enough to be a viable business product? [b] is the availability of raw material adequate for long-term production.

Nice to see the phenomenon becoming widespread – again.