Sheep’s Wool Instead Of Plastic? Swiss NGO Tests Woollen Blankets To Reduce Glacier Melt
As glaciers around the world continue to shrink due to rising temperatures, a Swiss environmental organisation is experimenting with an unusual but natural solution - sheep’s wool blankets. The initiative aims to protect vulnerable glacier surfaces while reducing dependence on plastic-based protective sheets commonly used in some glacier conservation efforts. For the Keep It Wool experiment, two…
The Swiss NGO, Summit Foundation, is conducting an experiment to determine if sheep’s wool could be utilized as a substitute for plastic-based protective sheets on glaciers to curb the effect of melting. The initiative, named "Keep It Wool," has placed two wool blankets, each spanning 100 square meters, on Glacier 3000 in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
The project, a collaboration between Summit Foundation and the University of Lausanne, is investigating whether wool, known for its insulating properties, can slow down the melting rate of glaciers, similar to the effect of synthetic tarpaulins. The NGO reports that wool blankets have demonstrated a protective effect equivalent to that of synthetic covers, reducing glacier melt by 50 to 70 percent in the covered areas.
Wool is biodegradable, renewable, and naturally insulating, offering a potentially more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to plastic-based solutions.
Written by urgent.news from Free Press Journal's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
