Wool or Acryl: which one is less harmful to the environment and why?
Let's analyze Wool and Acryl at every step of their life cycle, aiming to compare them correctly and get an accurate image.
✔︎ Raw material extraction
Most of the time, natural wool comes by cutting sheep, occasionally goats, lamas, yaks, and camels. All of them extract methane during their life cycle, known as a greenhouse gas, accumulating in the earth atmosphere and accelerating climate change. At that point, more than 50% of environmental release happens during all life cycle of woolen products.
Acryl, as well as any other synthetic materials, requires oil production. The extraction of acrylonitrile is very energy-consuming; therefore, the significant negative influence of acrylic fibre on the environment occurs at this point.
✔︎ Production
About 23% of the carbon footprint of a woolen product falls at the manufacturing stage when the energy recovers from fossil-based energy sources.
The production of acryl also demands a lot of energy and water. Besides, acrylic fibre manufacturing pollutes the air with particles of acrylonitrile, solvents, and material processing chemicals.
✔︎ Spreading
Before arriving at consumers in North America or Europe, the wool clipped in Australia or New Zealand transforms into a sweater in India or China; that's why the carbon footprint of this item can be enormous.
So far as the acryl is concerned, about 6% of greenhouse gas emission accounts for shipping and off-take.
✔︎ Maintenance
Wool is a solid and durable material and could be used for decades.
In addition, it absorbs less odour, doesn't require frequent washes and doesn't leave behind any microplastics in water. Moreover, woolens often obtain a second life with new owners or successfully get recycled.
The main issue in acryl using is microplastics separated at washing. The estimated quantity is about 729 thousand microplastics by one wash machine cycle.
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