Exploring Sustainable Bean-Bag Fillings: Charting a Path Away from Non-Biodegradable EPS

About Cleland McIver Ltd

Cleland McIver is a Rochdale-based home textile manufacturer and a major supplier to some of the UK’s largest furnishing retailers. Founded in 1983, the company specialises in designing and creating unique home textiles that enhance living spaces, with a strong emphasis on quality, sustainability, ethical standards, and family values. Leveraging over a century of combined textile experience, Cleland McIver focuses on innovation, value for money, and exceptional service.

Background

Cleland McIver is actively pursuing more sustainable material strategies within its product portfolio. One of the most material‑intensive product streams is bean‑bag fillings, which traditionally rely on expanded polystyrene (EPS). While EPS is lightweight and low‑cost, it is fossil‑derived, non‑biodegradable, and typically disposed of via landfill or incineration. As sustainability becomes a key procurement requirement and a core part of the company’s brand ethos, Cleland McIver recognised the need to investigate viable alternatives that would maintain user comfort, handling, weight, and consumer perception.

To accelerate this transition and reduce technical uncertainty, Cleland McIver partnered with CEAMS (Centre of Expertise in Advanced Materials and Sustainability), a collaborative initiative supporting businesses in developing and commercialising sustainable materials by bridging academic research, commercialisation, and scale‑up.

Project

In the initial phase of the project, CEAMS conducted a systematic technical landscape and literature review. This included assessment of commercially available bio‑based EPS analogues, recycled and pelletised materials derived from food and agricultural waste streams, fibre‑based expanded structures, and emerging solutions reported in academic literature such as starch foams, mycelium‑grown foams, and hybrid composites.

The objective of this discovery‑phase work was not to develop new bean‑bag filling materials directly, but to de‑risk future innovation by identifying whether any candidate materials justified progression to laboratory‑scale trials.

Results

The comprehensive review and expert guidance provided by CEAMS enabled Cleland McIver to confidently identify priority material classes suitable for further investigation. Crucially, the work prevented investment in unviable material routes and informed the scope of a Phase 2 R&D programme focused on experimental validation.

Impact

The collaboration accelerated Cleland McIver’s decision‑making process and significantly de‑risked early‑stage innovation. It provided access to specialist technical expertise and a holistic scale‑up network without the need for internal capital investment. Phase 2 of the project will involve laboratory‑scale testing, polymer processing, and mechanical and morphological characterisation of selected materials, facilitated through CEAMS infrastructure and expertise.