Wool
Note:
Wool refers to any hair shorn or collected from an animal and turned into yarn or cloth. For the purposes of this page, wool will exclusively refer to sheep wool.
Abundance
Wool makes up close to 3% of world fiber production, with approximately 2.1 million tons of sheep wool are produced every year [1]. 20% of that wool comes from Australia alone, with China, New Zealand, Iran, Argentina and the UK each producing over 50,000 tons in 2005 [2]. However, with increasingly cheaper synthetic fibers, wool seems to be at a standstill relative to other fibers on the fabric scene.
History
Like other natural fibers, wool has a long history. Evidence of sheep domestication can be traced back to 10,000 BC, and wool woven into cloth can be traced back to before 10,000 BC [3]. Over time, men selectively bred sheep into over 200 distinct breeds to fit a wide variety of dietary and textile needs [4]. Over many generations, sheep have been bred to produce far more wool than their wild counterparts (as evidenced by Shrek the sheep shown on right), as well as a wrinkled epidermis to increase the surface area wool can grow on. This has led to many ethical concerns about the health and safety of sheep bred for commercial purposes with these unnatural and potentially harmful traits. Nevertheless, wool is a fibre that will continue to persist for many years to come.
It is surprising how much of our western culture has ties in wool industries. The term "spinster" was originally the term for the eldest unmarried daughter, whose duty was traditionally to spin yarn from wool. Moreover, when the reel (known as a weasel) was full of newly spun yarn, it would make a popping sound. Hence the nursery rhyme, "Pop goes the weasel" [5].
Manufacturing
Different breeds of sheep produce wool with different properties. The first step to any manufacturer is selecting which properties are best suited for the ultimate product. For example, the hair of the Lincoln sheep is long and coarse and its wool is used primarily for carpets rather than cloths, whereas the North Country Cheviot produces superior fleece [6].
Despite the many different types of wool, the basic processes are still the same:
1) Sheep are typically shorn in the spring, shortly before they have their lambs, but after the winter has passed. Unfortunately on large sheep farms, to shear all the sheep in time, shearing often begins while it is still too cold for sheep to survive [7]. This is an ethical concern beginning to be addressed, with government protocols officially warning ranchers against these practices [7].
2) The shorn wool, known as fleece, is now called "grease wool", due to all the oil and lanolin in the fleece [8].
3) Before the fleece is cleaned, edge wool, and wool that is far too dirty to salvage is removed and discarded.
4) With the remaining fleece, grease is then removed by a wide variety of methods. One method uses copious amounts of water and detergent, while another submerges the wool in an acid bath, simultaneously dissolving all vegetable matter trapped in the fibers as well. This process is known as scouring, and afterwards, sometimes as much as 50% of the fleece weight is found to be due to previously residing vegetation, manure, or natural oils.
5) Cleaned fleece is then compressed into bales and sent to be processed.
6) Upon arrival, bales are cut open and fed to opening equipment, where metal teeth separate the wool fibers into fluff that is blown directly into a blending room
7) Different grades of wool and piped into the room, and air currents mix the wool to get the desired texture. In this stage, other materials like cotton can be blended in with the wool. In all, this process takes about an hour [9].
8) Now that the fluff has been blended, an air pipe transports it all to the next section, but along the way the fibers are lubricated with a mineral oil to speed the process and encourage the fibers to adhere to each other.
9) The resulting wool is then sent through a carding machine with thin metal rolls of teeth. This lines up the fibers and removes any remain debris, producing thin sheets of material called webs.
10) A machine then divides the webs into thin, flat strips, and they are sent through rollers that make it rounded strips known as rovings. Roving looks like yarn, but when pulled, it comes apart easily.
11) Roving is then wound onto spools, and from there wound onto a spinning frame, which stretches and pulls the roving tight to make strong yarn that is then wound onto a bobbin.
12) The wool is now ready to weave, and after it is woven, any remaining vegetable matter is burned off, and the fabric is now dyed.
13) Once dried, wool is then subjected to a final finish, determining its ultimate feel (ex. wool run through spiked rollers give a plush finish, but different finishes can leave flat or smooth finishes).
As complex and time consuming as this almost entirely automated process seems, just consider that until recently, this was all done by hand.
Environmental Impacts
If raised responsibly, wool can be a very eco-friendly fiber. Sheep are hardy enough to graze in grasslands few other animals can survive on, their wool replenishes itself every year, and the wool itself is biodegradable, easily cleaned, reusable and recyclable [10] [11]. Sadly, the majority of the time sheep are not raised responsibly, destroying the habitat around them with their grazing and requiring the use of pesticides to keep blowflies from causing the fatal condition known as "flystrike", which can cause even more harm to the habitat around them [10]. Coupled with the fact that sheep raised in hot, humid climates are generally not well adapted and require more water than their surrounds have to offer, sheep can drastically and negatively affect the surrounding habitat more than analogous, native fauna would.
Then in the process of creating fabric itself, the various scouring methods used to rid the fleece of oil can leak into the surrounding streams and seep into the ground, causing harm to environments around the processing plants. Unfortunately, dyes contribute to harmful run off as well, and in fact, wool is often dyed with chrome dyes, which require hazardous inorganic oxides to fix the dye to the wool [12].
What You Can Do
Try to buy wool from sheep not treated with pesticides. Try to buy wool with minimal, or eco-friendly, dyes. Rather than throw out old wool, try to recycle or resell it. When possible, check to see if the area where the sheep were raised did not put undo strain on the environment. However, this is very difficult information to come by. Essentially, it comes down to the fact that too much of any material causes harm to our environment, and by not buying more than we need we can mitigate these problems.
Wool refers to any hair shorn or collected from an animal and turned into yarn or cloth. For the purposes of this page, wool will exclusively refer to sheep wool.
Abundance
Wool makes up close to 3% of world fiber production, with approximately 2.1 million tons of sheep wool are produced every year [1]. 20% of that wool comes from Australia alone, with China, New Zealand, Iran, Argentina and the UK each producing over 50,000 tons in 2005 [2]. However, with increasingly cheaper synthetic fibers, wool seems to be at a standstill relative to other fibers on the fabric scene.
History
Like other natural fibers, wool has a long history. Evidence of sheep domestication can be traced back to 10,000 BC, and wool woven into cloth can be traced back to before 10,000 BC [3]. Over time, men selectively bred sheep into over 200 distinct breeds to fit a wide variety of dietary and textile needs [4]. Over many generations, sheep have been bred to produce far more wool than their wild counterparts (as evidenced by Shrek the sheep shown on right), as well as a wrinkled epidermis to increase the surface area wool can grow on. This has led to many ethical concerns about the health and safety of sheep bred for commercial purposes with these unnatural and potentially harmful traits. Nevertheless, wool is a fibre that will continue to persist for many years to come.
It is surprising how much of our western culture has ties in wool industries. The term "spinster" was originally the term for the eldest unmarried daughter, whose duty was traditionally to spin yarn from wool. Moreover, when the reel (known as a weasel) was full of newly spun yarn, it would make a popping sound. Hence the nursery rhyme, "Pop goes the weasel" [5].
Manufacturing
Different breeds of sheep produce wool with different properties. The first step to any manufacturer is selecting which properties are best suited for the ultimate product. For example, the hair of the Lincoln sheep is long and coarse and its wool is used primarily for carpets rather than cloths, whereas the North Country Cheviot produces superior fleece [6].
Despite the many different types of wool, the basic processes are still the same:
1) Sheep are typically shorn in the spring, shortly before they have their lambs, but after the winter has passed. Unfortunately on large sheep farms, to shear all the sheep in time, shearing often begins while it is still too cold for sheep to survive [7]. This is an ethical concern beginning to be addressed, with government protocols officially warning ranchers against these practices [7].
2) The shorn wool, known as fleece, is now called "grease wool", due to all the oil and lanolin in the fleece [8].
3) Before the fleece is cleaned, edge wool, and wool that is far too dirty to salvage is removed and discarded.
4) With the remaining fleece, grease is then removed by a wide variety of methods. One method uses copious amounts of water and detergent, while another submerges the wool in an acid bath, simultaneously dissolving all vegetable matter trapped in the fibers as well. This process is known as scouring, and afterwards, sometimes as much as 50% of the fleece weight is found to be due to previously residing vegetation, manure, or natural oils.
5) Cleaned fleece is then compressed into bales and sent to be processed.
6) Upon arrival, bales are cut open and fed to opening equipment, where metal teeth separate the wool fibers into fluff that is blown directly into a blending room
7) Different grades of wool and piped into the room, and air currents mix the wool to get the desired texture. In this stage, other materials like cotton can be blended in with the wool. In all, this process takes about an hour [9].
8) Now that the fluff has been blended, an air pipe transports it all to the next section, but along the way the fibers are lubricated with a mineral oil to speed the process and encourage the fibers to adhere to each other.
9) The resulting wool is then sent through a carding machine with thin metal rolls of teeth. This lines up the fibers and removes any remain debris, producing thin sheets of material called webs.
10) A machine then divides the webs into thin, flat strips, and they are sent through rollers that make it rounded strips known as rovings. Roving looks like yarn, but when pulled, it comes apart easily.
11) Roving is then wound onto spools, and from there wound onto a spinning frame, which stretches and pulls the roving tight to make strong yarn that is then wound onto a bobbin.
12) The wool is now ready to weave, and after it is woven, any remaining vegetable matter is burned off, and the fabric is now dyed.
13) Once dried, wool is then subjected to a final finish, determining its ultimate feel (ex. wool run through spiked rollers give a plush finish, but different finishes can leave flat or smooth finishes).
As complex and time consuming as this almost entirely automated process seems, just consider that until recently, this was all done by hand.
Environmental Impacts
If raised responsibly, wool can be a very eco-friendly fiber. Sheep are hardy enough to graze in grasslands few other animals can survive on, their wool replenishes itself every year, and the wool itself is biodegradable, easily cleaned, reusable and recyclable [10] [11]. Sadly, the majority of the time sheep are not raised responsibly, destroying the habitat around them with their grazing and requiring the use of pesticides to keep blowflies from causing the fatal condition known as "flystrike", which can cause even more harm to the habitat around them [10]. Coupled with the fact that sheep raised in hot, humid climates are generally not well adapted and require more water than their surrounds have to offer, sheep can drastically and negatively affect the surrounding habitat more than analogous, native fauna would.
Then in the process of creating fabric itself, the various scouring methods used to rid the fleece of oil can leak into the surrounding streams and seep into the ground, causing harm to environments around the processing plants. Unfortunately, dyes contribute to harmful run off as well, and in fact, wool is often dyed with chrome dyes, which require hazardous inorganic oxides to fix the dye to the wool [12].
What You Can Do
Try to buy wool from sheep not treated with pesticides. Try to buy wool with minimal, or eco-friendly, dyes. Rather than throw out old wool, try to recycle or resell it. When possible, check to see if the area where the sheep were raised did not put undo strain on the environment. However, this is very difficult information to come by. Essentially, it comes down to the fact that too much of any material causes harm to our environment, and by not buying more than we need we can mitigate these problems.