Every year, New Zealand produces about 50,000 tonnes of chicken feathers. In the past the only options for these feathers were to process them into low-grade animal feed, incinerate them or store them in landfills. But the feathers are now being sought as extra support for biodegradable plastics. An example of this concept was announced in March 2011, when American scientists including Dr Yiqi Yang demonstrated that they could make chicken-feather-based thermoplastics which remained stable in water. A little over a year later, at the University of Waikato, a similar incident is occurring. [ + ]

The second of the three little pigs built his house out of wood and although in the fairytale the wolf blew it down, the head of UniSA’s Zero Waste Research Centre - Professor Steffen Lehmann - says piggy number two may have been onto something. [ + ]

The concept of using wastewater to create green energy is much more widely applicable than often realised. Any factory with a biological waste stream or wastewater with high COD (chemical oxygen demand) can easily use this model to generate energy. Some companies making the investment have achieved payback within a year. Most typically achieve it within two years. [ + ]

Nissan invited Sustainability Matters to test drive the Nissan LEAF - its purpose-built, all-electric car, which is now on sale in Australia. [ + ]

When Eurobodalla Shire council was looking to control blue green algae and improve dissolved oxygen and pH levels at Deep Creek Dam, it installed five SolarBee long-distance water circulators. [ + ]

On 15 September 2011, Castle Hill RSL Club’s C2K Aquatic Centre turned on a new source of electricity and heat in order to improve energy efficiency while reducing its energy costs and its carbon footprint. After just five months of operation, the results prove that the cogeneration system installed by Simons Green Energy has significantly reduced energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. [ + ]

At Property Council New Zealand’s annual industry awards, the Christchurch Civic Building ‘Te Hononga’ took out the best of the best in the Resene Green Building category, taking the newly established title of ‘Best in Category’. It also won excellence awards in the Hawkins Construction Heritage and Adaptive Reuses category and the Hays Commercial Office category. [ + ]

RoeROC (Roe Regional Organisation of Councils) has celebrated the launch of the first mobile glass crusher in Western Australia. The Komplet MT5000 mobile glass crusher will increase glass recycling rates in the region by processing glass bottles and jars collected from households and businesses in Corrigin, Kulin, Kondinin and Narembeen Councils. The recovered glass will then be used locally in civil construction applications, diverting around 800 tonnes of glass from landfill annually. [ + ]

Power and automation technology group ABB has released its annual estimate of the savings achieved by its installed base of drives. About 310 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electric power was saved by ABB drives in 2011, an increase of 19% compared with the previous year. [ + ]

Darling Square, Powlett Reserve and several tree-lined median strips in East Melbourne will thrive well into the future with the completion of the Darling Street stormwater project. Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said this was a world-first inroad stormwater harvest scheme that would help save more than 20 million litres of water and safeguard Darling Street’s surrounding parks and trees. [ + ]

Clarke Energy Australia has recently commissioned a 1 MW GE Jenbacher gas engine which is an integral component of the Trigeneration plant installed at One One One Eagle Street - a 44-level, premium-grade office development in Brisbane’s ‘Golden Triangle’ precinct. [ + ]

One of the world’s leading dairy product companies is achieving high-efficiency discharge targets from a $1.5 million wastewater treatment facility for treating effluent from its Southern NSW manufacturing site. The company chose a high-performance high-efficiency DAF system, designed and installed by CST Wastewater Solutions. [ + ]

In a boon for the local solar industry, a team of researchers from Swinburne University of Technology and Suntech Power Holdings has developed what is claimed to be the world’s most efficient broadband nanoplasmonic solar cells. [ + ]

Research at RMIT University has demonstrated the feasibility of capturing some of the vast energy reserves in the upper atmospheric winds, a significant advance for wind power technology. [ + ]

University of Waikato scientists are hoping to create a smart water meter, completely powered by the water running through it. [ + ]