~ What is organic wool? ~
Isn’t Wool a Natural Organic Fiber Anyway?
Yes, but what they do to before it gets to you is totally unnatural.
We think of wool as a natural fiber because it is not man made, but large scale commercial grazing has relied on synthetic chemical inputs to increase profitability and to allow wool growing in regions and climates to which it is unsuited.
On the farm, organic growers must not use any synthetic inputs - dips, drenches, backlines or antibiotics. Instead sustainable farming practices with a low impact on the environment are used- clean pasture management, attention to soil health, environmentally sound stock ratios, good nutrition, and herbal and homeopathic treatments.
In conventional wool processing a cocktail of chemicals are used to clean or scour the wool.
Organic wool is washed in certified organic biodegradable detergent and nothing else
Last century saw the development of technologies to make wool unshrinkable, moth-proof and softer. All these technologies relied on chemical treatments and while they made wool more convenient the impact to the environment and human health was not fully taken into account.
Our organic wool is naturally soft because we select fine micron Australian Merino fleece to begin with and It is not subject to coarsening chemical treatments
How Do I Know It Is Really Organic?
WOOLganic yarns are made from certified organic Australian merino wool which has been certified by the Biological Farmers Association (BFA) or the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Australia (NASAA). Our wool is scoured in a plant that is certified by a third party know as: the Global Organic Trade Standard (GOTS). Our yarn is spun in a mill certified by Biogro.
What About Dying?
We use the best available low-impact metal free dyes. We hope to be able to introduce organic dyes as soon as the technology is available for commercial quantity dyeing.