Abstract: A method of treating wood chips prior to making paper. In the process of making paper, wood chips must be converted to pulp through delignification of the wood and where white paper is required, bleaching to remove residual lignin also is required. The invention provides for the situation where wood chips are transported long distances by ship to paper mills, when the period of the journey is utilised to carry out pulping of the wood chips by biotechnological methods. Particularly, the conditions commonly existing in the hulls of the ships with which wood chips are transported are utilized to permit biopulping and/or biobleaching of the wood chips to occur. Suitable microorganisms, while in the form of viable propagules, are applied to the wood chips before or during loading into the hulls of ships, the microorganisms incubating and growing during the journeys, to permit biopulping and/or biobleaching to occur.

Abstract: The invention relates to a sleeve provided for protecting a timber pole against sub-soil decay. The application of the sleeve on a pole forms part of a primary/preventative form of treatment, the sleeve comprising a composite structure including at least two layers of synthetic plastic material. At least one of the layers of the sleeve has heat shrink properties permitting the sleeve to be heat shrunk onto a pole, all the individual layers of the sleeve being of different materials having different properties that are selected in terms of the specific conditions of a pole to be protected and the sub-soil conditions to which the pole will be exposed, in use.