A cosmetic company claims it has developed the first 'carbon-positive' packaging in an attempt to reduce plastic waste.

British company Lush is to begin using cork for its packaging, which is biodegradable and requires trees to be planted for its use.

These trees are not cut down for their product, and are harvested every ten years for bark, remaining alive.

This means that to produce cork, one has to plant more trees, meaning that carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere.

Nick Gumery, creative buyer for packaging at Lush, said cork may be the answer to the plastic packaging crisis.

Miles King, a nature writer who works with the company, explained: "Cork is a natural product, made from the inner layer under the bark of the Cork Oak tree (Quercus suber). Traditionally used to make corks (as in stoppers for wine bottles) Cork is actually a remarkable material – anti-bacterial, fire-retardant, water-resistant, flexible, strong, easy to work; and at the end of its life, it can be composted.

"Harvested from a living tree, it also has an exceptional ability to sequester carbon, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change chaos. The [Lush] team’s calculations suggest that each cork pot sequesters over one kilo of carbon dioxide gas (and this is a very conservative estimate). This compares with an aluminium pot which releases 9kg of CO2 for every kg of Aluminium created."