In 2022 recycling fabrics and choosing ethically sustainable textiles is becoming increasingly popular, but a local wool mill has been recycling products for years.
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This year Creswick Woollen Mills is celebrating 75 years and for almost as long they have been recycling wool to use in their products.
Executive director Boaz Herszfeld said many people probably had recycled garments but at the time it was not popular to advertise them as recycled.
"If you think of the 1970s and Linda electric blankets, some of your older readers might remember purple, pink and dark green fabrics in their electric blankets," Mr Herszfeld said.
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"They are the colours that we couldn't sell in our other businesses."
The process was brought to Crewick by Mr Herszfeld's grandfather Paul Ryzowy in 1947.
"It was really hard to get dyestuffs after World War Two," Mr Herszfeld said.
"To die virgin white wool into colours was very difficult and expensive for quite some time."
Mr Ryzowy brought over the practice from Poland.
They would take old wool jumpers, take off the labels and zippers and then separate the items by colour into a shredding machine before respinning the fabrics into yarn to then make another product.
For 60 years this process was conducted on site in Creswick.
"A lot of what we have donated over the decades into op shop bins has not been good enough to sell in the shop," Mr Herszfeld said.
"Places like Creswick Woollen Mills would buy leftover textiles and in our case, we would buy old woollen jumpers.
"Over all those years I would not be exaggerating, if there were a million jumpers or a million sweaters recycled by Creswick Woollen Mills."
This recycling process has not been done on site for about 15 years, but the mill is still using recycled materials.
"We have partnered with a factory in India and the jumpers go from Australia and all around the world to this factory and they do the same sorting," Mr Herszfeld said.
Mr Herszfeld said the best way for residents to be involved with the recycling process is to donate to your local op shop.
"When manufacturers are 75 years old, they have so many stories that are there and so many staff that have worked over those decades and I think we should be really proud of our local manufacturing heritage and in the Ballarat area."
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