New Wool Carpet Cheap As Synthetic

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32252, 21 March 1970, Page 12

New Wool Carpet Cheap As Synthetic

A carpet has been produced in the United States, made of New Zealand wool, which will be competitive with very cheap synthetic carpets.

Speaking to a public meeting in Christchurch last evening, the managing director of the International Wool Secretariat, Mr A. C. B. Maiden, said that American Airlines would use this completely new type of needle-bonded wool carpet for the second biggest internal jumbojet fleet in the United States.

This fabric, he said, existed only because the I.W.S. had developed trial samples in needled wool. It had shown them to the biggest American producer of needled carpet, the Ozite Corporation, which had not used wool before. The secretariat had then procured New Zealand wool samples so that Ozite could make trials, and it had influenced the firm to test the carpet market with a printed design The result was that Ozite’s president had said it was probably the most significant thing that had happened to his corporation. Ozite was now advertising the carpet for domestic and institutional use. HALF WEIGHT Mr Maiden said that the carpet was half the weight of conventional floor fabrics, and Ozite’s own trials had satisfied the firm completely about wearability. It was expected to move rapidly into contract and domestic uses, selling from the mill at a little more than $3 a yard, cheaper by far that any other available wool carpet, and around the same price as needle-punched synthetic carpets. Ozite estimated that in the first year woo! consumption

would be between 3m lb and 5m lb—a third of New Zealand crutchings and two-thirds New Zealand two-shear wool. Mr Maiden said five major United States airlines had announced that they would use wool carpet in their Boeing 747 superjets. This helped both sales of wool and its image. The biggest, United, had also selected wool for its jumbo-jet upholstery fabrics, which had to meet the toughest flame-proofing standard in the world.

He did not want to give the impression that this was a big outlet, because even if wool was wrapped around the jumbo jets it would not represent a big increase in usage, but it did indicate that commercially oriented people were prepared to use wool. FIRE SAFETY

As a result of a crash programme with a chemical company, Mr Maiden said, it had been possible to demonstrate to United States civil aviation authorities a product as safe from fire as anything manufactured.

The permission given for wool to be used in carpets and upholstery in American aircraft was a recognition of the work that scientists were doing for wool, he said. Sears-Roebuck, the biggest United States retail organisation. had added four new wool ranges to its carpet programme. This was estimated to boost its wool consumption 2m lb a year, to 8m lb.