Is it OK to buy wool that isn’t from Australia?
It’s extremely hard to tell where a wool product originated. Most wool products, clothing especially, are routed through China (where labor is cheap and health and environmental standards are low) or Italy before being exported as a final product. This means that the wool in a garment labeled “made in China” or “made in Italy” has likely come from sheep raised in Australia, the country that produces roughly 30 percent of the world’s wool. The only way to be certain that you are avoiding wool from sheep raised in Australia is to avoid wool altogether, but avoiding merino wool is a great step in the right direction.
