Ethical Yarns And Textiles
Animals raised for wool production suffer many of the same indignities as those raised for meat — they are selectively bred to have unnatural and often distressing physical characteristics such as very thick wool, which can make their lives unpleasant. Sheep can suffer wool blindness or heat exhaustion because of excessive wool growth.
Shearing produces great stress in the animals as they struggle against the rough handling. The use of sharp shears brings the risk of cutting the flesh of the animal. Shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, which encourages fast work with less regard for the welfare of the sheep.
The CSIRO in Australia has developed a non-mechanical method of shearing sheep using an injected protein that creates a natural break in the wool fibres. After fitting a retaining net to enclose the wool, sheep are injected with the protein. When the net is removed after a week, the fleece has separated and is removed by hand.
Animals are also ear tagged, prodded electrically and eventually sold to slaughterhouses when their wool production declines.
Silk, on the other hand, is produced by the cocoons of the metamorphosing Silk Worm. In order to remove the silk from the cocoons, the worms are steamed to death, never achieving their life-cycle potential.
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♥ What you can do:
Bamboo, soy, banana, corn and other cellulose-based fabrics and yarns are now available.
Choose ethical yarns that are biodegradable, animal-free and that require minimal chemical processing.
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♥ Read more about these humane alternatives
