Closed-Loop Agricultural Production and Its Environmental Efficiency: A Case Study of Sheep Wool Production in Northwestern Kyrgyzstan

Komorowska, Monika; Niemiec, Marcin; Sikora, Jakub; Szeląg-Sikora, Anna; Gródek-Szostak, Zofia; Findura, Pavol; Gürgülü, Hatice; Stuglik, Joanna; Chowaniak, Maciej; Atilgan, Atılgan

doi:10.3390/en15176358

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…Coarse wool was applied as fertilizer to a bean cultivar (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), decreasing the carbon footprint by 10% [208].…”

Section: Agriculture Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-Friendly Processing of Wool and Sustainable Valorization of This Natural Bioresource

Popescu,

Stanescu

2024

Sustainability

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The environmental invasion of plastic waste leads to, among other things, a reassessment of natural fibers. Environmental pollution has shown the importance of the degradability, among other properties, of the raw materials used by the textile industry or other industrial fields. Wool seems to be a better raw material than the polymers that generate large quantities of micro- and nano-plastics, polluting the soil, water, and air. However, the usual processing of raw wool involves a number of chemically very polluting treatments. Thus, sustainable procedures for making wool processing environmentally friendly have been considered, leading to the reappraisal of wool as a suitable raw material. Besides their applications for textile products (including smart textiles), new directions for the valorization of this natural material have been developed. According to the recent literature, wool may be successfully used as a thermal and phonic insulator, fertilizer, or component for industrial devices, or in medical applications, etc. In addition, the wool protein α-keratin may be extracted and used for new biomaterials with many practical applications in various fields. This review makes a survey of the recent data in the literature concerning wool production, processing, and applications, emphasizing the environmental aspects and pointing to solutions generating sustainable development.

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“…Coarse wool was applied as fertilizer to a bean cultivar (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), decreasing the carbon footprint by 10% [208].…”

Section: Agriculture Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-Friendly Processing of Wool and Sustainable Valorization of This Natural Bioresource

Popescu,

Stanescu

2024

Sustainability

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“…Mountains occupy around 95% of Kyrgyzstan's landmass and today a considerable portion of the country's economy rests on wool production where this fiber makes its way into tourism, and into the agricultural and clothing industry (Beksultanova et al, 2021;Komorowska et al, 2022). The prehistoric site of Chap 1 is located 200 km southeast of the capital and economic center of Bishkek, in the Kochkor Valley.…”

Section: The Chap 1 Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

A Wooly Way? Fiber technologies and cultures 3,000-years-ago along the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor

Dupuy

Tabaldiev²,

Matuzevičiūtė³

2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Wool-focused economies yielded a pastoralist materiality that visibly shaped the lived experiences of Central Asian populations today. In this paper, we investigate the earlier application of fibers through a key mountain corridor for social interactions during Prehistory. We focus on the site of Chap 1 located in the highlands of the Tien Shan Mountains of Kyrgyzstan where researchers have found a complex agropastoral subsistence culture was established from at least ca. 3,000 BCE. The perishable materials that would have accompanied the early spread of cultural and technological traditions related to fiber-based crafts throughout this area are under-documented due to poor organic preservation. Hence, there has been little consideration of the role that textiles played in highland occupation and how woven fabrics might have facilitated settlement in the extreme climates of Central Asia. We address this ongoing problem through a multi-application survey of Chap’s unpublished textile evidence preserved as impressions in coarseware ceramics of its Final Bronze Age. We consider evidence that sheep wool formed a key cultural adaptation for surviving the extreme winters of Central Asia’s highland regions.

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“…Wool is a material that, when introduced into soil, improves its properties, especially in terms of the formation of soil aggregates. In addition, it increases the water capacity in the soil and improves the efficiency of its use by plants [5][6][7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Sheep Wool as a Substrate for Hydroponic Cucumber Cultivation

et al. 2023

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The problem of the use and disposal of horticultural substrates is an important element of the optimization of plastic greenhouse production in terms of economic and environmental efficiency. The production of mineral substrates is associated with a high energy expenditure, which generates costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. An important factor is also the transport of professional substrates over long distances. The research objective was to evaluate the possibility of using sheep wool to create horticultural substrates in the hydroponic production of cucumber. The modifier of production technology was the use of substrates of various origins. The experiment was based on the use of two substrates: one was a conventional substrate, made of mineral wool, and the other was made of greasy Gissar sheep wool, which is considered waste or a nuisance byproduct of sheep farming today. The adopted functional unit was 1 ton of commercial cucumber yield. The boundaries of the system were soil formation, fertilization, irrigation, and harvesting. The amount of GHG emissions was calculated in accordance with the ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards. The results of the experiment show that the use of sheep wool as a substrate in the hydroponic cultivation of cucumbers reduced yield by approximately 8%, but it allowed for a higher efficiency of water and mineral fertilizer use per crop mass unit. Within the adopted system boundary, the value of the carbon footprint in the object with the conventional substrate was 276.9 kg CO2 eq · Mg−1. The value of this parameter for the object with the sheep wool was 193.9 kg CO2 eq · Mg−1. The use of sheep wool did not increase the phytosanitary risk of the cultivated plants. An important goal for achieving sustainability, especially in food production, is to use materials that are easily recyclable and renewable, locally available, and environmentally friendly. The use of sheep wool as a substrate for soilless plastic greenhouse cultivation is a rational solution, as this material consists of 60% animal protein fibers, 10% fat, 15% moisture, 10% sheep sweat, and an average of 5% impurities. This makes it an easily recyclable, easily renewable, and environmentally friendly source of raw material for hydroponic substrates in food production, contrary to rockwool, which produces waste that is difficult to manage and a nuisance to the natural environment. In the countries of Central Asia, the sheep population is over 20 million; therefore, the potential for using sheep wool material for agricultural production is significant.

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Closed-Loop Agricultural Production and Its Environmental Efficiency: A Case Study of Sheep Wool Production in Northwestern Kyrgyzstan

Cited by 11 publications

References 62 publications

Eco-Friendly Processing of Wool and Sustainable Valorization of This Natural Bioresource

Eco-Friendly Processing of Wool and Sustainable Valorization of This Natural Bioresource

A Wooly Way? Fiber technologies and cultures 3,000-years-ago along the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor

Evaluation of Sheep Wool as a Substrate for Hydroponic Cucumber Cultivation

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