A TURKEY'S traditional place at Christmas is on the dining room table.

But thanks to boffins at Manchester university it could soon be under the tree after they developed a way of turning feathers into wrapping paper.

Prof Chris Carr and his team think they may have carved out a new role for the festive birds.

They collected feathers rejected by a bedding firm and used specialist machinery to turn them into paper.

The university's state-of-the-art digital print centre then got involved and the end product, featuring a turkey and feather design, was born.

Those involved reckon the wrapping paper could be good for the environment.

They say around 120,000 tonnes of waste poultry feathers are produced each year in the UK with the majority incinerated or sent to landfill sites.

Because of that there is a huge demand for an alternative processing route for the feathers.

The university team now hope their idea will find a new use for the birds.

Under the method pioneered by Prof Carr and his team, feathers from poultry are mechanically beaten, filtered and turned into a crude feather pulp.

As well as paper the boffins have also been able to make flame retardant plant pots from the feathers which they say are `far more' biodegradable than their traditional plastic counterparts.

Prof Carr paid tribute to the technology at the University which made the project possible.

He said: "Over recent years we have been working closely with industrial partners to characterise feathers, develop suitable cleaning technology and identify potential opportunities for new and novel products.

"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 fortunate to be the only university in the UK to boast such advanced equipment."

Prof Carr warned that it may be a while until punters could expect to see the products in the shops.

He said: "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.

"But we see this as a real opportunity to take the massive volume of poultry feathers, which are currently being incinerated or dumped into land fill sites, and put them to good us."