It surprises me that little is done to use the millions of tonnes of the world’s chicken byproduct—feathers. For fifteen years I have read about optimistic research into how to use feathers in a productive way instead of sending them to landfills. Some farmers use them as low-grade feed but it is usually cheaper for them to just bury the feathers in a landfill. Researches have come up with many other ways to re-use feathers in industial processes but I can’t find any major way they are actually doing it on a big scale.
You can read about investigations into industrially processing feathers to form different kinds of plastics for uses from flowerpots to automobile dashboards. Or just made into plastic biodegradable pellets that can be made into many things. Just search, “industrial feather waste use”.
This truck full of waste feathers tipped over a few years ago on the highway north of where I live.