Going Green with Alpacas
Alpaca is as soft as wool, sleek as silk, light as a cloud and carbon neutral eco-friendly
- Sustainable - an ever-growing American herd and source of fiber is on the horizon
- Natural - non synthetic; not petroleum based like polyesters, acetates, acrylics, nylon, rayon (a wood pulp product which required dry cleaning!) or Gortex. Cotton uses 25% of all insecticides applied to the crops. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deems seven of the top 15 pesticides used on US cotton crops to be potential or known human carcinogens.
- Renewable - unlike mink or baby seal, we do not kill the animal; we simply harvest the fleece
- Durable - archeologists have found remnants of Peruvian Inca alpaca textiles from centuries ago
- Alpacas are the most agriculturally environmentally friendly of animals - they live lightly on the earth
- Their soft padded feet do not cut into the topsoil.
- Sheep and goats are much harder on the earth.
- Damage to topsoil decreases long-term soil fertility and in the process, the soil is eroded and weed invasion is encouraged.
- Alpacas are kinder to pasture, browsing on a variety of grasses and other plants without disrupting root systems, rather than overeating.
- This allows faster pasture recovery and minimizes soil erosion.
- Where cattle (leather) pull up grass by the roots and compress the soil, alpacas do not.
- Alpacas can thrive in deserts and mountain plains, by doing something most other domesticated animals (and many humans) haven't been able to master: They stop eating when they are full. Alpacas consume roughly 1.5 - 2.0 % of their body weight daily. So for a 125 lb. alpaca at 2.0%, that is 2.5 lbs. per day. We eat more than that!
- Alpacas' fur, referred to as fleece, grows quickly and is lighter, warmer and softer than most sheep wool.
- Alpacas consume far less water than most other herds. Their efficient 3-stomach digestive system metabolizes most of what they eat.
- Their pellet-like droppings are Ph balanced and an excellent, natural, slow release, low odor fertilizer and even bio-fuel.
- They lack upper, incisor teeth, so they do not chew and tear the native vegetation. Rather, they gently "cut" it against their palate, which encourages the plant's growth.
- No Chemicals are employed during the industrial production of the fleece into fiber.
- Sheep fleece contains lanolin. A multi-step detergent wash is needed to remove most of the lanolin.
- No need for insecticides (cotton), herbicides and fertilizers which pollute the groundwater
- Alpacas come in nearly unlimited natural colors - offering a full array of choices with no chemical dyes required. But if desired, only 20% of a normal dye quantity is required.
- Manufacturing synthetic fibers is energy-intensive and can release lung-damaging pollutants such as nitrogen and sulfur oxides, particulates, carbon monoxide and heavy metals into the air, as well as climate-warming carbon dioxide.
- Alpaca Fleece adapted to naturally resist intense solar radiation in rarified mountainous atmosphere.
- Even the less desirable fleece (lower legs, britch, etc.) is being used as natural weed mats around trees. (yes, it is biodegradable)
- Alpaca clothing breaths naturally, unlike synthetics that cannot remove natural perspiration from next to the skin. Alpaca fiber naturally wicks moisture from your skin, keeping you warm and dry.
- Alpaca fiber is very strong (durable end products), does not require dehairing, it is easy to process (no lanolin) and gives a high yield of end-product (twice the percentage that sheep yields)
Buy Alpaca- it is eco-aware clothing.
"Agriculture is sustainable when it is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, culturally appropriate and based on a holistic scientific approach." - NGO Sustainable Agriculture Treaty
Why waste yet more fossil fuels manufacturing petroleum-based synthetic fibers when the natural solution is in our own backyards? Alpaca fiber is:
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