Is Merino wool clothing sustainable?
Recycled wool and the circularity of Merino wool clothing
Is Merino Wool Ethical?
High Quality Merino Wool Clothing Comes from Ethical & Sustainable Practices
Introduction
Angus Ireland of Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), global leader in the wool industry, details how higher quality Merino wool clothing is a result of ethical and sustainable production methods. He also discusses the biggest obstacle to sustainability facing all textile and clothing manufacturers: consumer behavior.
Is Merino Wool Clothing Sustainable?
Libertad
Can you talk about the wool industry’s approach to sustainable production?
Angus Ireland
The wool industry has invested pretty strongly in sustainability. We want to ensure that our efforts to lighten the environmental footprint of wool production are targeted and have the most effect. And we've only just very recently completed and published a cradle to grave life cycle assessment (LCA) for merino wool clothing. And that involved about 10 years of data collection to accumulate the information we needed. You know, we're pretty pleased with ourselves if you like. I don't think any other textile industry has done that and taken it all the way through to peer reviewed publication. Cotton was ahead of us in that they have done a cradle to grave LCA, but they haven't taken to the next step to get the peer reviewed publication like we just recently did.
I suppose the important findings, or the value of doing life cycle assessment, is that it points to the hotspots in your supply chain that you can work on to lighten the footprint. And this one in particular, found that at the different stages the impacts were different. At the farming stage it was greenhouse gas emissions that were the biggest impact. But, during wool processing it was energy use. And lastly, in the use phase, when people are actually wearing their merino wool clothing it was water use. That was, that was the biggest impact.
Libertad
I thought the most water was used in the wool processing. But, you’re saying that the biggest use comes from the customers washing their wool clothing, is that right?
Angus Ireland
The personal use phase is where all the machine washing happens. There's a lot of water, energy and detergent used at this stage. It makes a big impact, a big footprint for all textiles. Cotton, polyester, everything.
It's also important to be aware that that life cycle analysis is a young science that's still evolving. it's not perfect and, in our view, it's not ready. The ratings that you get from agencies like the Sustainable Apparel Coalition are not yet ready to guide the consumer towards the most sustainable products.
Maybe if I just touch on some of the reasons why it would help explain. One of the fundamental principles of life cycle assessment is that all life stages must be accounted for before you choose the best product. And the most ratings agencies like, for example, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, only account for the front end of the supply chain.
So in their case, they account for the raw material sourcing and turning that raw material into a garment and that's where they stop. But, there are significant impacts that occur further on in the life cycle. Like we just discussed during the use phase. There's a lot of energy water detergent, softeners are used in keeping laundry clean. And at the end of life, that's another important stage because clothing typically ends up in a landfill and if it's not biodegradable, it stays there forever clogging up the world with rubbish. But, as we know the biodegradability of merino wool clothing is a huge benefit over synthetic clothes and it isn’t counted by the ratings agencies.
Libertad
This seems kind of obvious that you would include the entire life of the garment in what is called a “life cycle assessment.” Do you have any sense of how such an omission occurred?
Angus Ireland
Well, it's not necessarily an omission. It's just where they are up to. They're planning to account for the use phase, but they don't account for it yet. When you speak to people at the SAC they say it's a tough stage to get information on. And we understand that. Who knows what really happens behind closed doors; how people use their clothing.
We've been doing a lot of work in that area, actually. We call it a “Global Wardrobe Survey.” It was a survey of five countries: Germany, the UK, China, Japan and the USA.
In each country we surveyed about 220 people on their laundering practices to understand the frequency of laundering; what type of washing machine they use; and whether they line dry, or use a tumble drier. All of those things need to be understood in order to measure the impact of the use phase. We discovered massive differences between countries. On average, garments in the US were washed, I think, three times between wears, and in Japan, it's 11 times between. Massive difference!
Libertad
Is this Merino wool clothing? Or, is this all clothing?
Angus Ireland
Not just Merino, but all clothing. So, you can see this is an important area to be measured by the ratings agencies and it is not currently.
I want to emphasize the cultural differences laundering frequency because, I think, that was the biggest single effect. But after that, it was fiber type as the next biggest single effect.
It was pretty clear on socks, for example. Merino wool socks are worn double the time compared to socks of other fibers. And the amount of washes between wears, across all those countries, was 3.4x for people wearing their wool socks. For synthetics, cotton and cellulosics, it was 1.7 wears. That was the most extreme example. But on t-shirts, for example, a merino wool t-shirt was worn 3.8 times on average between washings and all the other fiber types, on average, was 2.2 times between washings.
Washing Merino clothing less has a double benefit. It's not having such impact during the use phase due to less water, energy, detergent & chemicals. But also, Merino wool garments have a longer life because they are not damaged as much due to laundering. Every time you wash clothes, the wear and tear gets them closer to being not socially acceptable. And so, yeah, it is a really important stage to account for and it's not yet included. And like you say, it sounds like a no brainer that life cycle assessment should assess the whole life cycle. But, that's not how it's being done in practice yet.
To be fair, they would say it's a work in progress. But, our point is they shouldn't be publicizing and promoting different fiber types until they've got the whole life cycle covered. Things like microplastics are not counted because that happens in the use phase and end of life, biodegradability is not counted. Those impact areas are not yet in life cycle assessment.
Libertad
That's actually a big one because I know on social media that microplastics are getting a lot of bad publicity. I haven't seen it associated with any life cycle assessment, but just in the public consciousness microfibers are a big negative.
Angus Ireland
That's one of the problems of being an emerging area of science. There's a lot of focus on it right now.
We've invested in it because we wanted to make sure we weren't part of the microplastic problem. We were getting criticism that the finishes applied to the surface of the fiber to give it machine washability might be a pollutant because it's a type of nylon that is applied as part of the Hercosett shrink resistant process. So, completed a study in New Zealand on biodegradability in both marine and terrestrial environments.
The marine study involved 90 days immersion in seawater with all of the bacteria and microorganisms that are present in the ocean. Then we assessed how much biodegradation there was compared to something that biodegrades rapidly as a control. And we knew wool would biodegrade in marine environments because we'd seen that before. And we certainly know that it biodegrades in terrestrial environments. What we weren't sure about was what happens to the finish on the surface of the machine washable wool.
We used scanning electron microscope techniques, and another technique called ADX, to look at those residuals after biodegradation had happened. And the important finding for us was that all of the residual, all of the bits and pieces that were floating around afterwards, had a sulfur content equivalent to wool. So we were able to say, ‘Well, it's not the Hercosett treatment. It's gone. It's disappeared from the environment. We couldn't find anything that didn't have wool’s level of sulfur in it afterwards.’
Libertad
Sulfur is an indication of biodegradability?
Angus Ireland
No, sulfur is an indication that it is wool because only wool has such a high sulfur content, not the finish that's applied to the surface of Merino wool fabric. It's only applied to about 1% of the fiber, but we still didn't want to be at risk of being part of the problem. So, we just needed to explore that completely. And yeah, so the Hercosett treatment, which is this nylon-like material, has a much lower sulfur content, and we could find none of that in the solution after the completion of the biodegradability test.
Libertad
Since it wasn't there, we can say that the wool industry is not part of the problem?
Angus Ireland
Yes. There's no evidence that we're part of the microplastics problem. I think we needed to do that work to make sure we were on solid ground. But on the other side of the coin, the impact of microplastics still very much is yet to be confirmed. We know that textile micro fibers are worse in the ocean than microfibers from rubber tires. That's the biggest source, actually, of microplastics is rubber tires. But, synthetic clothing is the second. 35% of all microplastics come from synthetic clothing. And we know that fibers from textiles are worse because they're so long and thin that filter feeders at the bottom of the oceans, muscles, worms and crustaceans, can readily take them up into their digestive systems where they build up and block the gut. And once it's inside them, they are part of the sea life food chain and ultimately it makes it way to humans.That's the area where the research that is still unfolding - just exactly what are the effects on humans from microplastics?
A recent study found that 73% of deep sea fish had microplastics in their stomachs which is a lot. A majority. A further study by John Hopkins suggested that immune systems can be damaged when humans eat seafood containing microplastics.
So, that's early days and it would need to be confirmed. But, I suppose the point is that until the effects are known, comparing LCA’s of different fiber types won’t be accurate. And we've spoken to the SCA about accounting for microplastics at this phase and they said, ‘Well, you know, when the science is in we can do that. But, until the science is in it is not possible.’
There was a recent project called the Plastic Leak Project that we participated in and Quantis was the main researcher. That was intended to identify where plastics come from and give businesses the tools to measure the quantity of microplastics and plastics from their supply chains. That's been quite successful. Companies like Nike and others can measure the quantity, but they don't yet know what the impacts are.
Libertad
When the Sustainable Apparel Coalition says, ‘Come back to us when the science is in.’ What does the Australian wool industry do at that point? Do you have to find your own scientists and conduct your own research? Or, do they want you to hire a third party? Or, do you have to piggyback on something that's going on?
Angus Ireland
We did some early research in this area...it was more like a literature review of what all the science is saying about microplastics so far and that was published. But, we've only got so much money to invest and we have to select our targets fairly carefully. There are other organizations much bigger than us, like John Hopkins, for example, you know, they're doing the research. So in this case, we're sitting on our heels waiting for that to come in. That's all we can really do.
It's another example of a slightly unlevel playing field in lifecycle assessment. Until you get all these impacts accounted for, it's not a level playing field and the same goes with biodegradability. That's not accounted for either. So, the impact of synthetic clothing in landfills all around the planet, that just doesn't count. And I suppose the other one that's worth touching on, we've talked about two things not being counted so far - 1) all fiber life cycle stages and 2) some microfiber and biodegradability impacts. So, the third area that I think is relevant is built out in the 14,000 Series ISO standards - you need to have the same system boundaries when you compare products.
And that means that the same production steps need to be accounted for. But, that is problematic when you're comparing natural and synthetic fibers. And the reason for that is that natural fibers like wool, cotton and bamboo all have to be grown. And typically they are grown on farms. I'm not sure about bamboo, but wool and cotton are grown on farms. You can measure how much land is needed. You can measure how much chemicals are applied; how much water is used; how much energy is used. You can measure the waste streams from those, from those processes. All of the inputs and outputs to properly account for growing the fiber can be accounted for in our lives. In our recent LCA for wool we measured farms all around Australia. Value for all of those inputs of land, water, chemicals, waste streams, and so on, greenhouse gas emissions, are included in our LCA.
But, when it comes to synthetic LCA’s their raw material is already made. It just bubbles out of the ground in the form of oil free of any environmental footprint. There's no accounting for the fact that that oil was once a huge rainforest that generated a huge amount of use. A lot of land generates a huge amount of greenhouse gases that just doesn't get counted.
Libertad
What about oil collection methods? Platforms in the oceans, pipelines, trucks, etc. There’s damage to land, air & water.
Angus Ireland
Some of those things would be accounted for in the LCA I would say. A drilling rig is using a certain amount of land. So that's the footprint. So they, in theory, should be accounting for those steps of getting the oil out of the ground and processing it. But, they don't account for the fact that the oil itself is just a free raw material. It doesn't have to be grown. It doesn't need any energy or water. It's just there. And, unfortunately, LCA’s just recognize that as a reality. Those impacts happened eons ago and can't be accounted for now.
Synthetics will always have a lighter footprint in the raw material sourcing stage than natural fibers. So, that confounds the problem. SAC is only just looking at part of the life cycle. They don't count the areas where wool performs best, which is at the back end - the use phase and end of life. They only count the front end where synthetics get a free tick in their raw material. It's not equal. It's not a perfect system.
But anyway, we have to come to that realization here. That LCA is not a level playing field. It's not a solution for us. And when the European Union, who are most progressed in this area, plan to put labels on garments sold into the EU, indicating their environmental status - not just for clothing, but for everything that's going to be sold into the EU - as part of their product information the environmental footprint rating. We pretty much have to accept that if some labels are a bright green meaning good for the planet, and some are bright red, meaning bad for the planet, wool, cotton and other natural fibers are going to be in this sort of orangy ready section and polyester, polypropylene and nylon are going to be up there in the green section.
Libertad
I wonder how the public's going to react to that because if you go up to any person on the street right and ask them which is more green, wool or polyester, they’re going to say ‘wool.’ Polyester does not have an eco-friendly reputation in no small part due to the publicity of the microplastics mentioned earlier.
Angus Ireland
There's good reasons for that. Merino wool and cotton are renewable. You can grow them again and again every year, whenever the sun shines and the rain falls. But, synthetics are not renewable and they will eventually run out. One of the studies we're doing to address that issue of synthetics getting a pass for oil creation. You can grow polyester from canola or sugar. You can actually make a raw material that ends up being polyester. It's a bio polyester. And and that's one way we're trying to make the point that the level playing field should be more level. Because when you grow it, then you're using land, you're using energy, you're creating greenhouse gases, and it's a more level comparison. But, that's kind of a philosophical thing though. More to make the point than it is to actually get it accepted into LCA. That it's not a level playing field.
Recycled Wool and the Circularity of Merino Wool Clothing
Libertad
It's a little bit mind boggling that this kind of thing can't be sorted out.
Angus Ireland
Yeah. So that's really where we are with it. Once we've done our own LCA, and pointed the finger to the areas where we can do work, that work will now progress. But, you know, our view really now is that we need to focus on marketing. And not just focus so entirely on LCA, but on other areas. There are these impacts that aren't measured. Microplastics, biodegradability, circularity, etc. Wool is probably the most circular fiber because it's been happening since, you know, 1880 in the UK. They started the process there. There's a well trodden path to recycling wool. And costing about 8-10 times the value of cotton and polyester makes it a viable industry.
Wool recycling is also done in India and Prato in Italy. So, we do have a circular fiber. We can make it more circular and that's an area we need to focus on in our communications and make the point that LCA is not everything. Being renewable, recyclable, biodegradable and not contributing to microplastics are key attributes that aren't yet accounted for in LCA.
Libertad
You mentioned marketing, what kind of public education or outreach is happening to make the public aware of the circularity and the recyclability of their Merino wool clothing?
Angus Ireland
We haven't answered that question yet. Now that we've done our LCA, now that it's becoming clear that the playing field won't ever be level, I'm having that discussion with our marketing people now. We’re thinking about our strategy going forward to overcome this bias that's inherent in LCA. And I think, you know, consumer engagement, consumer education has to be a big part of our strategy. We normally liaise with brands. We don't generally get down to the individual consumer level. And so we've got to find a way of reaching out either through brands or in partnership to make these points.
Are Merino Sheep Treated Ethically?
Angus Ireland
At the farming stage, we already mentioned that greenhouse gases are the biggest impact area and that's largely because sheep belch up methane as part of the digestion of grass and methane is a bad greenhouse gas. And it's not just sheep, it's all ruminants. So it's cattle, goats, camels, deer, all the others, they all do that. And so one of the most effective things that we can do to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of wool, is to improve the reproduction rate of sheep. If one mother produces 1.2 lambs, rather than 1.1 lambs, you've got less greenhouse gas from the mother in the product of those lambs.
Libertad
So, a higher birth rate results in and less methane per kilo of Merino?
Angus Ireland
Yes. That's the metric. For example, ‘How much greenhouse gas is a Merino wool shirt?’ Let’s say it weighs 200 grams. And if I can reduce the amount of greenhouse gas that was required to make the shirt then I've shrunk the footprint. At extreme circumstances, if one mother can make five lambs each year instead of one, then the amount of greenhouse gas she emits is spread across five lambs and each one of those lambs might be making three Merino shirts. So, if we can increase the reproduction rate, we reduce the rate of greenhouse gas per kilo of wool from those Merino sheep.
And the same goes with lamb survival. Farmers are always anxious to maximize the lambing rate. They want to lamb into better weather because bad weather systems can lose a lot of lambs. They want to lamb into shelter belts where they're protected from the wind and the weather. And, they've got to make sure that the Merino ewe has the right level of nutrition throughout her life. Before mating, she's got to be at a certain level of nutrition to get a high lambing rate. Before birth, she's got to have the right level of nutrition and after birth as well. Reproduction and management of the livestock activities all impact the footprint of a wool shirt.
Also, what they eat makes a difference. Some types of sheep food are methane mitigating. Certain types of legumes, clovers and grasses generate a lot less methane than other types of grasses. For more than a decade, we've been researching this space. We've been searching the Middle East, South Africa and similar climates to Australia to find really high mitigating legumes that can be imported to Australia and grown here successfully in our climate.
So, we have different types that have all been shown to thrive here and have very low methane emissions. That's been a long term thing. You've got to get on through Australia’s whole quarantine system before you can even test them. And you've got to build up your seed base to undertake proper trials, to validate that they actually do thrive here. But that's been a very successful area, which is yet to really have its main impact because we haven't got large parts of our country under these legumes just yet, but we were getting close.
On methane, it's not all about the farming stage. It's not all about the raw material stage. I mentioned earlier that wardrobe survey. It shows that people wear their Merino wool clothing more often between washing than other garment types. And that's because of its odor resistance and wrinkle resistance. Because it looks and smells clean, people don't know that you haven't washed it. We think we're still a long way from where the consumers should be. They don't understand just how far you can go down that path.
The previously highlighted difference between America and Japan mentioned is huge. In America, it’s normal to take your clothes off and throw them in the bin to be washed after each wear. And the machine is a front loader, not a top loader, which uses more energy and creates more greenhouse gases. Then after washing, it's quite normal to chuck them into the tumble dryer. In contrast, other cultures don't wash as often. They use a top loader and then they line dry the clothing. Those cultural norms have a big impact.
Libertad
The men’s Merino clothing market very proudly talks about the reduced maintenance of their Merino clothes. They get on forums like Reddit and literally brag about how many times they've worn something before they've had to wash it. For them, reducing any chores, any maintenance is a big plus because it makes more time for the other things in their life.
Angus Ireland
It's gotta be a win-win, doesn't it? If it's going to be good for the environment, it's also good for you. What's not often understood is that wool clothing, you know, that nature had about a hundred million years to get the fiber right. And if you're living in a world of carnivores, lions and tigers and foxes and wolves and things, you don't want to be the smelly one [laughs]. It's built in to minimize that effect.
Libertad
I might have to steal that line from you, Angus. I have not seen any Merino brand explaining the anti-odor performance capability that way, but that's perfect.
Angus Ireland
I go to conferences and people talk about technical fibers that can do this and can do that. And I say, ‘Look. Merino wool is THE technical fiber. It's had so much research and you're talking about something that's only had like five years research to come up with. But, wool...this is a hundred million years of evolution to come up with. A whole package of features to protect the organism it’s grown on.
Libertad
Before I even knew what Merino wool was, I was trying to find technology that would create these travel clothes that would prevent wrinkling and odor and other things. As part of my research, I was in contact with a textile chemical salesman that sold to Patagonia. So, everything that he did met their high environmental standards. And I had a long list of what I wanted the travel clothes to be able to do. And I went to him and I asked, ‘How many chemicals can we put on cotton? How many chemicals can we put on polyester to achieve this mythical travel shirt?’ He said to me, ‘Look, if it has to do all that stuff, you have to do it with Merino wool.’ I documented the conversation in LIbertad Kickstarter video from 2015.
Angus Ireland
Ha ha. That's great, isn't it?
Where that's going for us, I think, is that consumer education is the way of the future. Highlighting these features for them. In our cradle to grave LCA, that was the main finding. The biggest impact we can have on wool’s environmental footprint, notwithstanding those things I mentioned at the farm stage, but the biggest single imprint and impact is to influence consumers towards best practice. We call it “best practice care.” And that's only washing when you need to wash because that has that double whammy of reducing resources associated with washing clothing as well as lengthening the lifetime of the garment and keeping it in active use longer.
We've got a trial underway right now in New Zealand. It's kicking off on the 10th of August. It has 21 participants and they wear cotton, polyester and Merino wool. The trial is really all about seeing how many wear cycles can happen before you need to wash it. Unfortunately it’s been badly affected by the coronavirus because each day they we're meant to sniff the clothes at the start of the day. So, they wear it in an office scenario. And at the end of the day, they give it back to the researcher and that goes into a conditioned room overnight. And the next morning they come back and there's the 21 garments in front of them. They go and they don't know which belongs to them so they have to sniff them all. And they say, ‘I wouldn't wear that one. I would wear that one or…’ And if they say they wouldn't wear their own, then they’re out of the trial for that stage. But, if they say that theirs is still okay, they go on. And then coronavirus came along, so we just had to modify the trial to adapt to the pandemic. We now have five other dummy clothes with artificial odor added to them that we've simulated human odor with, so we can still do the whole study. But, it's just been made a bit more complex.
High Quality Merino Wool Clothing Comes from Ethical & Sustainable Practices
Libertad
Number one, the quality of the raw wall that comes from healthier sheep. And then number two, is there anything that consumers can do at this stage, you know, to sort of verify that their brands are selling environmentally friendly wool or, or if there's any, anything they can do?
Angus Ireland
On the quality Merino wool, it's a simple story. It's really all about nutrition. What farmers seek to do is have a high level of nutrition and maintain that throughout the growing season. If there's a shock to that system, like if the nutrition in the pasture is low, or if there's not enough of it, wool suffers like the sheep suffers and the fiber diameter at the time of nutrition disruption is reduced. It is all the same diameter and then it just cuts in. If it's a serious enough shock it'll stop growing altogether.
Libertad
You can have a fiber that's several inches long, and there'll be a point in the middle of it, potentially, that's a weak point.
Angus Ireland
Absolutely. It's common to measure not just the micron, but the strength of the staple, which is about as thick as a ballpoint pen. We have a machine that grabs the staple, gives it tug and breaks it in half. And if there was a weakness, if there was a seasonal break, it would always break at that point. Whenever there's a stress point in the sheep’s life, we're measuring the worst stress point along the whole growing season with that device.
Libertad
How does this manifest itself in Merino wool clothing? Does it mean that somebody buys a Merino wool t-shirt and it develops a hole, or...
Angus Ireland
You see it in the fiber length before it is spun into a yarn. If it's broken in the middle, the fiber length in the raw wool is a lot shorter.
If Merino wool growers know that in each growing season, there is a disruption that happens every year - even an excess of feed will cause a sudden change in diameter because it gets thicker at that point and that's where the fiber will break - they will try to move that event nearer to one end of the fiber, or staple, so that they still got a good body of length. And then you have a long fiber length and you spin stronger yarns. The bit that's left over from shorter staples, you see that in the amount of pilling on a garment.
Libertad
That's where pilling comes from?
Angus Ireland
Yes. Short fiber length.
Libertad
I mentioned that Merino wool has a very enthusiastic customer base that actively talks about Merino clothing online. The issues of pilling and holes come up over and over again.
Angus Ireland
It is a weakness. Where the Merino shirt might be over the belt buckle, or any spots that get constant abrasion, that's where the little pinhole will first appear. That was the reason that we developed core spun wool.
Libertad
Merino yarn with nylon in the middle.
Angus Ireland
Continuous filament. Yes, to overcome that problem.
Libertad
What do you tell a conscientious wool customer to look for if they want to make sure that they get the best Merino wool clothing available?
Angus Ireland
In Australia, there's been a growing interest in having quality assurance systems that evaluate the farm where the wool came from and the practices on that farm. Also, mulesing is invariably part of that as well - whether they mules or don't mules on that farm. There would be 10 different quality assurance systems and probably more in Australia that a brand can purchase through if they wish. They differ slightly in their focus. Some have a stronger environmental focus, some have a social welfare focus and others emphasize animal welfare. A brand can choose a system that matches your values and purchase through that system. Customers can be made aware of that system.
But the other essential element of that is traceability. Because you can buy wool that claims the highest ethical standards, but it's got a long way to go to get from the farm to the customer. You need to have an effective mechanism for verifying that it is the same Merino wool that goes right around this supply chain from start to finish.
Libertad
It starts in Australia; winds around the world; ends up in China or Italy and can be mixed up with other wool quite easily.
Angus Ireland
That's right. It's easy to pull the wool over, so to speak. Ha, ha.
Libertad
Ha, ha. I'm sure you have more than a few wool jokes...good way to end an interview.
Thank you.
Kyle Barraclough
Author
Founder, Libertad Apparel