A team at The University of Manchester, led by Professor Chris Carr, has engineered a process that characterises, cleans and breaks down poultry feathers to form a pulp suitable for papermaking.

The group has already produced Christmas wrapping paper using the pulp.

The university is working with industrial partners to develop commercially viable production processes that would lead to mass production of paper and other feather-based products.

Poultry feathers are normally incinerated or sent to landfill, with companies having to pay to have the estimated 120,000 tonnes produced in the UK each year taken away.

Professor Carr said: "We see this as a real opportunity to take the large volume of poultry feathers and put them to good use.

"Our progress in this field and the production of prototype products would have been impossible without the unique paper production pilot facility we have on campus.

"We are very excited and encouraged by our results and the prototypes we have produced, although there is still some way to go before products start to appear on the shelves."