Biodegradable packaging can only be a positive step but insufficient information and unregulated marketing could lead to more harm than good. Packaging Professional asks a panel of experts.

Technology Networks is an ERDF funded project that offers places on study tours and placements to European centres of excellence to share good practice, develop collaborations and receive vital guidance on research and development.

Marginally-engineered building techniques used in rural residential shelters are being investigated to initiate a mainstream engineering code for bamboo.

Synthetic crystals that mimic naturally occurring biominerals such as sea urchin spines are being fabricated in the UK. The results would assist ceramic production, and the creation of larger, less brittle structures for electronic devices.

Spanish researchers have developed a way to use human waste as an admixture in ceramics, a method that could have industrial and environmental benefits.

Clay and mushrooms are now being blended for use in sunscreens.

At the recent Materials KTN Mattress Whitewater event in Grantham, UK, delegates explored innovative methods to keep mattresses out of landfill and put them to work in cement kilns and plant membranes.

A research report that summarises everything known about Sitka spruce and brings together 90 years of research into a single document has been published by the UK’s Forestry Commission.

A study at McGill University in Montreal, Canada has found that 800-year-old Sitka spruces in coastal boreal forests are excellent at gathering moss, making them effective at mitigating nutrient depletion and carbon sequestration.

A bioremediation technique capable of restoring oil-contaminated soil to a state suitable for plant growth has been developed by Lithuanian company Biocentras.