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Wool — an Environmental 

 Answer to Oil Spills 



Waste wool could turn into the treat- 

 ment of environmental choice for 

 oil spills and other nasty clean-up 

 problems. 



Low-grade wool that currently has no 

 market offers a range of economic and envi- 

 ronmental benefits for the clean-up industry: 



^ as a waste product, it's cheap; 

 ^ it is a natural, renewable and 



fully biodegradable product; 

 ^ it's tough enough to be used 



under the roughest Arctic 



conditions; 

 ^ yet it's gentle enough to swab 



down oiled birds and mam- 

 mals; and 

 ^ best of all. it naturally absorbs 



from 10 to 30 times its weight 



in oil. 



As a first step in developing a range of 

 alternative uses for wool, five organizations 

 have joined forces to pool their expertise. 

 The members of the new "Wool 

 Environmental Products Consortium" are 

 Hobbs Bonded Fibers of Mexia, Texas; 

 Western Textile Products Co. of Dallas, Texas; 

 SnugFleece International of Pocatello, Idaho; 

 Te.xas Tech University of Lubbock, Texas; and 

 the American Wool Council, headquartered 

 in Englewood, Colorado. 



Together, the consortium members are 

 investing S7 1 6,344 in their first project — 

 turning low-grade wool into the traditional 

 booms, pads, socks and other items used by 

 the clean-up industry to deal with spilled and 

 leaked Uquids. To support the project, the 

 Alternative Agricultural Research and Com- 

 mercialization Center, a branch of the U.S. 

 Department of Agriculture, is providing S700,00 as an investment to be repaid from sales of the new 

 products. 



The consortium's first step will be to manufacture and test the new wool clean-up materials on a 

 pilot basis. Once floating oil-spill booms and other items are commercially available, the consortium 

 expects rapid industry acceptance based on lower purchase and disposal costs per gallon of oil absorbed 

 and improved performance compared wdth current clean-up products. As an added benefit, the consor- 

 tium expects its wool pads to be reusable after squeezing out collected oil — and eventually capable of 

 being broken down into polypeptides and amino acids for use as protein concentrate for animal feeds. 



Illustration oy Ed Courre' 



Hobbs Bonded Fibers, TX 



Sponsor's Contact: Carey Hobbs, (817) 562-5998 (fax) 



Raw Material: 

 Product: 



AARC: 



Waste Wool (817) 562-5351 



Booms, Pads, & Socks 

 $700,000 



(Tel) 



Cooperators Contributions (est): $716,344 



USDA-AARC CENTER • 12th & C St. S.W. • Washington, DC 20250 

 Telephone: (202) 401-4860 • Fax: (202) 401-6068 



Printed on recycled paper using soybean tjsed mk 



