Chicken feathers make up more than 3.6 million tonnes of waste every year in the EU, and more than 100,000 tonnes here in Australia.
Extracting value from the feathers is difficult and has historically been a very low value exercise, with prices for feathers hovering around A$1/kg.
UNLOCK is the name of the 4 year project that commenced on the 28/4/21 and is funded by the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking.
In a nutshell, the project is about “Releasing the potential of feathers to foster circularity in agriculture”.
It aims to do this in a variety of ways and across the entire value chain.
The critical element in all of this is keratin.
Keratin breaks down at a controlled rate and it enriches soils with organic Nitrogen.
The products currently under development are known as bio-plastics and include mulches, seed trays, hydroponic substrates and films.
The very latest of these products to be developed has just been announced by project participant, AIMPLAS.
A sustainable hydroponic foam that breaks down after a defined time and can easily be incorporated into soil as an organic additive.