Ngāi Tahu entrepreneurs create wool bandages to save the ecosystem. Video / Maori TV

Originally published by Maori TV

Lucas Smith, nō Ngāi Tahu, was injured while enjoying the outdoors in the Southern Alps a few years ago.

He applied plastic plaster-and immediately realized that plaster would never biodegrade in the ecosystem.

That injury allowed him to undergo five years of trial and error to make biodegradable wool bandages.

"This is the evolution of'well, why don't we use a fiber that really sleeps on the mountain I'm exploring,"' he said.

Now, the 26-year-old entrepreneur is running his Wool Aid company near Lake Tekapo, producing purely natural, responsibly produced and biodegradable ultrafine merino wool bandages.

Smith thanked his parents and Ngāi Tahu for supporting him from the beginning, when he first left the mountain to create his products, by applying for his "freedom of business" documents (to ensure that he did not infringe anyone's patent).

"I have the freedom to manipulate documents, which is basically like a legal track, telling you whether an invention infringes anything. So without that document, nothing will happen."

Smith pointed out that the plastic plaster is made of petroleum from a well in Texas, extruded and manufactured into plaster that is only used once, and then retained in the ecology for decades.

"Every year, 5 to 60 billion (plastic gypsum) enter our ecosystem, and when sheep eat wool, they eat grass and absorb carbon. Put on a wool bandage, and then it will decompose and release nitrogen and return to our carbon cycle. ."

Smith said that wool bandages can be placed in the soil. "Depending on the temperature and humidity, bits and pieces can disappear within six to eight months, which is incredible."

Smith works with suppliers who own and manage the land around Lake Tekapo and breed Merino sheep whose wool is exported to Italy and turned into woven fabric, "usually shipped to companies such as Dior and Saint Laurent."

Smith said the fabrics were then sent to China, where they were cut and sterilized into bandages before returning to Australia.

"Unfortunately, New Zealand has lost a lot of capacity in wool knitting, processing and medical manufacturing."

Smith said he doesn't understand why New Zealand wool needs to be processed, exported and re-imported. He is now calculating carbon credits to change this.

"I can't understand why we have to export all products. So our dream is to bring them all back to New Zealand."

Smith said he had to learn everything from scratch by working on a Merino sheep farm to understand how fiber is produced.

"In January 2020, I was an intern at a company that actually weaves fabrics for us, which owns a farm in New Zealand."

"I am an unpaid factory worker. I worked on the factory floor for nine weeks and learned everything from what happened when the fiber from the back of a New Zealand sheep came in."