Childhood indoctrination

[Aractus]

Cotton isn't a synthetic fibre, and I think there are other vegan non-synthetics if you must have them. Wool is also very bad for the environment, and a horribly inefficient use of land, as well as being bad for the animals, who have to endure painful procedures without anaesthetic (castration, ear-tagging, tail-docking, mulesing and pizzle-dropping depending on flystrike prevention methods).

And yet you live in Australia? I'll grant you that mulesing is a painful procedure, but it's far more attractive than the pain that the animal goes through if it endures flystrike. You know what happens to sheep that get flystrike because they were too young to go through mulesing? They either get put down - or they endure months of agony as they're slowly nursed back to health (if they're lucky).

As for being bad for the environment, why don't you go tell that story to Gregory's or, Sebel or, since you're from Melbourne, Schiavello? Maybe you can convince them that Wool doesn't provide the durability demanded by textile fabrics? When was the last time you saw them use nylon, or for that matter, cotton for hard-wearing textiles?

How is Nylon or Cotton going to be better for the environment, when the product wears out faster, thus has a shorter lifespan and so more net gets tossed into landfill? Not to mention the fact that synthetics are non-recyclable!

To produce the desired fine wool, it is often desirable to underfeed the sheep. Since meat is not the main product, farmers don't care if their animals starve, unless it causes them to die, as they have been genetically selected to put their energy primarily into wool growth. Shearing invariably causes painful cuts that can become infected, as shearing is usually rushed because herds contain sheep in their thousands, whose individual needs are not met.

Yep, you're loony.