Recycled wool explained

Recycled wool, also known as rag wool or shoddy is any woollen textile or yarn made by shredding existing fabric and re-spinning the resulting fibres. Textile recycling is an important mechanism for reducing the need for raw wool in manufacturing.

Shoddy was invented by Benjamin Law of Batley in 1813.^{[1] [2]} It was the dominant industry of Batley and neighbouring towns in the West Riding of Yorkshire, known as the Heavy Woollen District, throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.^{[3] [4] [5] [6]} Following its decline in the United Kingdom, the centre of the shoddy trade shifted to the city of Panipat in India.^{[7] [8]} Efforts have been made to revive the British recycled wool industry in the 21st century.^[9]

Terminology

Historically, recycled wool products were called rag wool. Manufacturers distinguished between three main categories of rag wool:

• Shoddy – made from loosely woven or "soft" textiles that could be pulled apart relatively easily;
• Mungo – made from "hard" fabrics such as felts, that were harder to disintegrate but resulted in a finer product;
• Extract – made from the wool portion of cotton/wool blended fabrics.

In practice, few outside the industry were aware of these distinctions, even when rag wool was widely used.^[10] The common name was shoddy, which became a generalised term for poor quality goods. It is still used as a technical term for recycled wool within the industry.

Regulators in the United States make a distinction between reprocessed wool, which is made from manufactured wool products that were never used by the consumer, and reused wool, which the consumer has used.^[11] Other bodies refer to these as pre-consumer and post-consumer waste material.^[12]

The terms virgin wool and new wool are used to distinguish newly-produced, never-used wool from shoddy.

Notes and References

1. Book: Jubb, Samuel . The History of the Shoddy-trade: Its Rise, Progress, and Present Position . 1860 . Houlston and Wright . London . English.
2. Book: Shell, Hanna Rose . Shoddy: From Devil's Dust to the Renaissance of Rags . University of Chicago . 2020 . 9780226377759 . Chicago . 19–35.
3. Malin . John Christopher . The West Riding recovered wool industry, ca. 1813–1939 . 1979 . PhD . University of York .
4. Book: Hudson, Pat . The Genesis of Industrial Capital: A Study of West Riding Wool Textile Industry, C.1750-1850 . 2002-04-11 . Cambridge University Press . 9780521890892 . en.
5. Book: Clapham, J. H. . Revival: The Woollen and Worsted Industries (1907) . 2018-12-20 . Routledge . 9781351342483 . en.
6. Book: Clapp, B. W. . An Environmental History of Britain since the Industrial Revolution . 2014-07-15 . Routledge . 9781317893035 . en.
7. News: 2017-09-07 . Panipat, the global centre for recycling textiles, is fading . 2019-03-24 . The Economist . 0013-0613.
8. Web site: 2018-04-28 . In Panipat, the world's 'castoff capital', business hangs by a thread . 2019-03-24 . hindustantimes.com/ . en.
9. Web site: Evergreen: From shoddy manufacture to textile recycling . 2019-03-24 . ENDS Report.
10. 8 April 1871 . A City of Honest Imposture . All the Year Round . 5 . 25 . 441 .
11. Robert E. Freer. "The Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939." Temple Law Quarterly. 20.1 (July 1946). p. 47. Reprinted at ftc.gov. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
12. Web site: 13 April 2018 . Recycled Wool: A Primer for Newcomers & Rediscoverers . 2019-03-24 . European Outdoor Group . en.