WOOLUME

Polish sheep wool for improved resource utilisation and value creation

The main objective of Woolume is to explore how an under-utilized natural resource – wool from remote mountain regions – can be maximized into materials in local sustainable industry innovation systems that offer high returns on investment and contribute to an optimized, next-generation circular economy.

Mapping, understanding and further developing products from the biomass for interior sound-absorption/acoustic properties and for soil enhancement will be at opposite ends of the research scope – ensuring innovation, impact, resource and fibre-property utilisation. 

The project team is composed of research, education and business experts on wool, fibre-properties, resource maximizing, value-chains, value-creation, dissemination and certainly knowledge-transfer. Alongside the practical and environmental work with the wool, a theoretical approach will aim to change the discourse on how resource utilisation leverages a more sustainable future. 

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are at the core of the project. Through better understanding how the wool from the Polish Beskid mountains can, through grazing, optimise value-enhancement and dissemination of results and environmental consequences, Woolume aims to “up the volume” for best practices to enhance biodiversity and carbon sequestering, alongside economic gain, in a low-income agricultural region.

Participants

  • Ingrun Grimstad Klepp
  • Kirsi Laitala
  • Anna Schytte Sigaard
  • Vilde Haugrønning
  • Lisbeth Løvbak Berg
  • Tone Skårdal Tobiasson, nicefashion.org
  • Jan Broda, Akademia Techniczno-Humanistyczna w Bielsku-Bialej


News from the project

Visit to Poland

Ingvild and Lisbeth visited Poland the last week of June. The goal of the trip was knowledge transfer and during it, they held three workshops/seminars. At the University of Bielsko-Biala, teachers and pedagogy students were invited to a workshop about teaching wool to children, emphasising the creative potential as well as cultural aspects…

Continue Reading Visit to Poland

Acoustic Performance of Sound Absorbing Materials Produced from Wool of Local Mountain Sheep

Katarzyna Kobiela-Mendrek, Marcin Bączek, Jan Broda, Monika Rom, Ingvild Espelien and Ingun Klepp Abstract Wool of mountain sheep, treated nowadays as a waste or troublesome byproduct of sheep husbandry, was used for the production of sound-absorbing materials. Felts of two different thicknesses were produced from loose fibres. Additionally, two types of yarn,ring-spun and…

Continue Reading Acoustic Performance of Sound Absorbing Materials Produced from Wool of Local Mountain Sheep