Researchers have developed ways to substitute chicken feathers for petroleum in some plastic products, and at least two companies are working to bring items ranging from biodegradable flower pots to office furniture to market, The Associated Press reports.
The substitution would allow the U.S. to cut back on its oil use, however slightly, and give poultry producers another market for the more than 3 billion pounds of leftover chicken feathers they have each year, the developers and others said. The challenge, they added, is coming up with products that manufacturers and consumers want at a price that’s right.
“What works in the lab and what works commercially are two different things,” said Sonny Meyerhoeffer, whose company began selling flower pots made partially from feathers last fall.
His company has patented a process for removing keratin resin from feathers for use in making plastics. Keratin, a tough protein fiber also found in fingernails, hair and horns, can replace petroleum in some cases. Right now, Meyerhoeffer’s company sells flower pots that contain 40 percent bioresins, although it has been able to make ones that are completely biodegradable and made from feathers.
“It still needs a little refining,” he said. “We’re a year, maybe a year and a half away from getting it perfected on a commercial scale.”
The federal government has thrown its support behind such work. The research arms of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American Nursery & Landscape Association are working together to find ways to use keratin resin from avian feathers in plastic manufacturing.
The landscape association’s Horticultural Research Institute was granted the exclusive license rights for a 2006 patent for its research with keratin resin from avian feathers, the group’s website says.
