Renowned for its quality and durability, wool is the most recycled apparel fibre in the world, offering an unparalleled circular solution. The Woolmark Recycled Wool product specification offers supply chain and consumers added confidence in quality as products undergo and pass the same tests as virgin wool fabrics to guarantee the same features.
With a rich 200-year recycling heritage, wool provides an opportunity to improve the linear fashion and textile industry's current practices. Research by the Centre for Colour and Textile Science at Leeds University has shown that wool products have the potential for two or more uses or ‘lives’ and a total ‘active life’ of 20-30 years, supporting the transition to circular business models and design.
Why Recycled Wool?
Up to 6% of all wool fibre undergoes mechanical recycling. Recycled wool offers extensive benefits: from reducing environmental impact and conserving resources to ensuring durability and versatility in every garment.
Woolmark-Certified Recycled Products
The Woolmark Certification Program’s recycled wool certification scheme focuses on products made from pre-consumer and post-consumer wool products that have been reclaimed and reprocessed into new yarn, knitted or woven fabric, apparel or footwear. Recycled Wool is a sub-branding to the Woolmark logo suite, indicating that a product is made of either 100% recycled wool or a wool blend that contains at least 20% recycled wool with a fibre diameter ≤22.5um.
A certificate substantiating the recycled wool content of a product is required to use the logo on finished products. The Global Recycled Standard (GRS) and Recycled Claim Standard (RCS) set the criteria to verify and track the recycled content of materials and are deemed acceptable.
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