[Pil-pc-oceania] Closure of CSIRO scour

[Daniel Rossi]

On 12/04/2008, at 7:59 AM, Fern Rainbow wrote:

> I asked Long tops (small business in geelong  that processes wool)  
> about the closure of the scour.  They said that it's having great  
> impact.  Their prices for scouring and carding have increased by  
> nearly 50% from december last year, from $12 a kg to $20 a kg... I  
> do wish that I'd got my wool processed last year :( as if I get it  
> processed now it's going to cost almost double the price.  The  
> closure of the scour will discourage a lot of small businesses, like  
> myself.  It was already a fair amount, now it's just too much.
> Most farmers already just sell their wool overseas, the closure of  
> the scour will just encourage this.  We may not see any locally  
> processed and made garments in the near future :(

So it goes overseas to be processed, and then returns as a garment.

>
> Where do your local garmet makers get their wool processed/ or their  
> processed wool from?
> Australia already doesn't have the processing facilities for other  
> natural fibre, such as hemp, and now we are losing our processing   
> facilities for wool as well.

Yes this is really bad news, my gf is learning fashion design and she  
has to order all her natural fibre fabrics like hemp, bamboo, organic  
cotton, soy silk from the US who most probably get it from China. So  
much fossil fuel travel thats why I called it 'Clothing Miles' hahah.  
I wonder if there is ways to install modular processing systems  
directly on the farms, which means fabric can be made on site or it's  
processed for making fabric / threading ?

I do know there used to be a local organic cotton mill or something  
like that which shut down so there isn't anything here to my  
understanding so I have to buy my clothing from the US :\

Being able to make your own clothes from locally grown and sourced  
material would be a liberating thing.

>
> How on earth can EDAPs be enacted when we can't process our natural  
> fibres locally?  When our clothes etc can't be made locally? And all  
> our fibres have to go overseas to be processed.  It's ridiculous...

Free trade with China ?