Generally, rag graders, the market for the bulk of old textiles, sort textiles into different grades, sometimes as many as 150 different grades. Ripped or stained items may be sold for rug making, auto insulation, industrial wipers, blankets. Wool tends to fit into the higher prized and higher marketed grades and is reused chiefly in the manufacture of new wool clothing, blankets, sleeping bag liners, and occasionally other products. Some of the wool is also exported. The Reclamation Association of Great Britain says that wool is recycled to fiber reclaimers and manufacturers who make woolen cloth, flock fillings and felts with it.
Preconsumer waste goes to making new woollen cloths and blankets and felts .
One English manufacturer of recycled woollens is Evergreen Recycled Fashions, Yorkshire, who turn worn sweaters and rags into new yars and fabrics by a series of processes which begin with pulling the garments apart in a machine with counter-rotating spiked rollers. This restores the garments to their constituent fibre, known as shoddy. Buttons are mechanically removed . . To avoid the need for re-dyeing, a process which has high water demand, uses large volumes of chemicals, and generates large quantities of effluents needing treatment, material is hand sorted into 40 standard colours and shades. A series of mechanical processes then turns the fibres into a spun yard for sale either as hand-knitting yarn or for the manufacture of cloth for making wool garments. .