Wood waste is being turned into protective packaging liners.

Stora Enso, a massive forestry company, is extracting a material called lignin from wood. Lignin is the natural glue that makes trees stiff and strong. For decades, it was just treated as waste during paper making and burned for energy. Now, they are turning this lignin into bio-based barriers for cardboard packaging. Instead of lining your takeaway box with a thin sheet of plastic, they use wood-based lignin. This creates a barrier that keeps grease and water from soaking through your food container, but still lets the box rot down naturally in a compost bin.