Domestic sheep’s wool is too coarse and rough for the textile industry. The infrastructure for washing, combing and spinning wool has disappeared from Europe. The wool we wear is made from Australian, New Zealand or South African sheep’s wool, processed in Southeast Asia. In Germany, one shearing of wool weighs approx. 4-5 kg. The shearing costs per animal are around EUR 3-4. On the market, the wool discount per kilo is between 10 and 40 cents. According to the German Animal Welfare Cadaver Act, the wool must be disposed of as hazardous waste, which incurs significant costs.
Folke Köbberling deals with the raw material raw wool, a material that insulates, acoustically filters, smells, greases, heals, warms and insulates, in order to develop new ways of using it. One option is to make soundproof walls from sheep’s wool. As an absorber material, it is an alternative to synthetic materials for noise barriers along railroad lines, for example. Sheep’s wool is compostable, untreated and a habitat for insects.
