Waikato University researchers are investigating potential to salvage the feathers left over from slaughtering poultry for meat and turn them into a biodegradable fibre.
About 50,000 tonnes of feathers are produced annually by the nation's poultry industry, and are normally ground up into feather-meal and fed to animals.
But Dr Johan Verbeek says the university's engineering experts have been looking at using the feathers as a composite in the plastic industry.
Fibre from the feathers could be used to strengthen plastics.