Help us find a sustainable fibre option

Experienced Lime Plasterers – I need your help.

Fibres are one of the most important materials we use. There are currently two main options – animal fibres or plastic fibres.

Goat – the fibre of choice for many because of the perception that it is very traditional.  This fibre is sourced from the fur industry in China.

Then there’s Horse hair – also seen as very traditional. It comes in these easy to use round bundles. This is sourced from the Chinese Meat industry.

And then there’s the poly propylene fibres – plastic fibres. Easy to use, easy to source.

We moved away from using animal fibres a few years ago as we weren’t comfortable with how they were sourced and we move to the plastic fibres. We rationalised this by thinking ‘what we put on the walls will be there for hundreds of years’ however at the training centre, we hack off our plaster every couple of months. Some of it we use on jobs but a lot of it goes to landfill with those plastic fibres in it.

Over the last few months, we have reached out to our local equine community and they have kindly been sending us their horse fibre. It is unprocessed which means its stronger than the Chinese fibre and its local. Its great for our jobs and we encourage fellow plasterers to do the same if you can. However, for our students, and for plasterers who work on large projects, its not scalable which is why we have been researching and testing a range of alternatives.

Our criteria for alternatives is that we want to source something that is ethical, some that is from the UK, it needs to be sustainable, scalable and of course it needs to offer consistent results.

We think we have found some great options but we need help from fellow lime plasterers to test them on a larger scale. We want to find out how they preform on different substrates, in different mixes and for people with a range of experience levels.

In the coming weeks, we will be sending out sample packs and questionnaires to lime plasterers, suppliers, and keen DIYers who would like work with us to test the solutions we have found. We are hoping that we can work as an industry to find an alternative to the current options.

If you would like to be involved, please follow the link to register your interest, and you’ve tested any fibres recently, we would love to hear your thoughts.

Register your interest in helping: https://forms.wix.com/r/7189593184333201551