Primary industry: Wool rediscovering the golden fleece

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It has to be one of modern life's absurdities that companies selling plastic polypropylene clothing derived from fossil fuels are allowed to call it 'fleece'. But in recent years real wool has been making a comeback.

Cutting-edge Kiwi clothing company Icebreaker is now busy clothing savvy customers in more than 3000 stores in 37 countries in fashionable, high-spec merino, while wool products from carpet makers Cavalier Bremworth are successfully taking on the synthetics inside our homes.

The movement has some influential backing. The Prince of Wales, arguably the world's most famous sheep farmer, launched The Campaign for Wool in 2010 to reinvigorate interest in the fibre worldwide. It is set to run until 2015.

Jeremy Moon, who founded Icebreaker in 1994, is pleased that the new wave of wool is now getting a royal nod of approval: "I think it's cool that he's dusting off the tweed and broadening his view of wool to include beautiful new lightweight merino wool fabrics, which are changing the face of what wool is," he says.

"Wool went out of favour because it was itchy, prickly and old- fashioned. ?We've made it light, soft and cool. People won't buy things only because it's natural; it's got to be natural and beautiful."

The properties of wool

For something you just cut off a sheep, wool has an amazing array of properties which would be the envy of any textile company's R&D department.

Natural and renewable: wool products use less energy than man-made fibres during manufacture.
Sunsafe: wool has naturally high UV protection. Air cleaner: wool absorbs toxic chemicals from surrounding materials and limit airborne dust.
Flame retardant: wool has a high ignition threshold of 600º C. It also produces less toxic fumes in a fire.
Biodegradable: wool takes only a few years to decompose.
Breathable: wool absorbs and releases vapour, maintaining a more even temperature when used in home furnishings. ?Wool is not known to cause allergy and doesn't promote bacterial growth.
Durable: wool fibre can be bent 20,000 times without breaking. The natural oils in wool resist dirt and grease.
As well as in clothes, carpets and soft furnishings wool is finding favour in industrial application to soak up oil spills, and filter contaminants from air and water supplies
A NATION OF SHEEP KEEPERS

The first sheep in New Zealand were set ashore by Captain James Cook on 22 May 1773. He dropped a couple of merinos off in Sheep's Cove in the Marlborough Sounds. They dropped dead within 24 hours.

Later, in 1814, Samuel Marsden introduced merinos into his mission station in Waimate North and major shipments of sheep begin in 1834. Farmers soon discovered the Merinos were better suited to the dry high country of the South Island rather than the wetter North Island. Later British immigrants brought other breeds of sheep with them, and the industry took shape.

Wool became New Zealand's main export earner from the 1850s until the start of the 20th century, and produced almost 90 per cent of total export income in 1860. Between 1971 and 1989 wool export prices outstripped the accelerating prices in other commodities, rising by more than 800 per cent.

The number of sheep peaked in 1982 at 70 million, with earnings topping out around $1.8 billion in 1989. Since then wool has fallen in importance, with the rise of synthetic fibres and a shift to exporting sheep meat rather than wool.

CLEANING UP WOOL'S IMPACT

Like most commercial products, wool is not without environmental cost. The process of cleaning or 'scouring' wool requires washing in hot water and detergent, often mixed with pesticide to kill any insect life, which can lead to contaminated water run-off.

A 2004 study prepared for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry found that NZ's wool exporters could not guarantee that wool supplied could meet the requirements of the most common environmental standards in its markets, and that scour effluent discharge levels of pesticide may breach EU guidelines.

The boom in organic wool production and forward-thinking scouring operators like New Zealand Wool Services International (WSI) are addressing this issue. Both of WSI's facilities have Environmental Choice certification.

As well, the Kaputone plant has been certified with AsureQuality, and is the only facility in New Zealand to scour wool to the European - ECO-LABEL standards.