A blended fabric made from New Zealand strong wool and Chinese waste rice straw is being developed by a Wellington company.
It is the brainchild of the Formary, which takes waste fibres from industry and converts them into fabric. That includes blending used Starbucks coffee sacks with wool to create an upholstery fabric for the coffee chain's furniture.
The waste rice straw was blended with 29 micron wool to make a hard-wearing upholstery weight fabric.
One of the company's directors was in China several years ago and observed the air pollution at harvest time.
With China being the largest grower of rice in the world, producing about 200 million tonnes a year, there was "a heck of a lot" of rice straw left over and much of it was burnt, managing director Bernadette Casey said.
With the global population expected to increase by two billion in the next 40 years, it was predicted farmers were going to have to grow 50% more food to meet the extra demand.
There was limited arable land and, in order to be able to provide those food crops, what was being grown on that land needed to be looked at, Ms Casey said.
Being able to obtain fibre for textiles, as a by-product of food crops, made sense with a growing population, she said.
The Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing had introduced the Formary to state-owned rice producer Grand Peak International Trading Company.
The two companies were working through a commercial arrangement and Grand Peak was keen to begin commercialisation of the fabric at the next rice harvest in October.
The Chinese Government, which had a target of using 75% of rice straw by 2015, supported and encouraged solutions for such a major waste stream, Ms Casey said.
She was excited about the project, saying it was a great fabric, and she was also very positive about it being another solution for the New Zealand wool industry. For too long, the focus had been on carpets, she said.
The Formary was continuing to develop products from wool, particularly strong wool, and it was involved with another three wool projects.
Funds left over from wool levies collected by Meat and Wool New Zealand (now Beef and Lamb New Zealand) have supported the development of the rice straw-wool fabric.
It was one of seven entrepreneurial wool projects to be awarded a share of $500,000 in remaining wool levies.
Beef and Lamb was delighted the Formary had found new uses for New Zealand strong wool, chief operating officer Cros Spooner said.
Such innovation created opportunities for the country's strong wool and ultimately benefited sheep farmers, he said.
