Clean up for the recent spill in the San Francisco Bay was partially cleaned up by hair. Hair is a great catalyst in absorbing oil. Image courtesy of Matter of Trust.
Volunteering in the Steinhart Aquarium has given me a deeper respect and love for the ocean. Which I didn’t think was possible as I grew up walking Santa Cruz beaches with my grandfather. I have always loved the ocean. I cringe thinking about the Gulf spill and feel overwhelmed with dread about is affect on coastal and marine ecosystems
The way clean up has been dealt with by BP makes my skin crawl. I was sent an article about the 3 million gallons of oil being hastily cleaned up with chemical dispersants. Director of Oceana, Jacqueline Savitz, commented on the massive use of these dispersants as a lose-lose situation: “These chemicals are toxic. It would probably be illegal to dump them in the ocean under any other circumstances.". One dispersant in particular, Corexit 9500, has been noted as four times as toxic as oil.
Making a toxic soup is not the only way to go about a clean up. Clean up for the recent spill in the San Francisco Bay was partially cleaned up by hair. It was a sustainable and effective measure. Hair is a great catalyst in absorbing oil. Matter of Trust has set up a program to collect human hair from salons. Phil McCrory, stylist and inventor of the hair mat, notes “There are over 370,000 hair salons in the US and each collects about 1 pound of hair a day. Right now, most of that goes into the waste stream, but it should all be made into hairmats." Hairmats are mats made out of clippings from salons that are then made into square mats or boons, which are hairs stuffed into nylon socks. These are used to absorb oil from oil spills. Matter of Trust has also been partnering with other organizations like Fungi.com in order to research ways of making used hairmats into clean and usable compost. With Fungi.com research is being done to see if mushrooms break down the oil in the hairmats into usable compost. If this proves successful, you have a cycle of clean up that mimics the no waste cycle found in nature. I saw the hair mats in action when they demonstrated them at one NightLife at the California Academy of Sciences. It is such a simple and effective tool for these natural catastrophes.
What’s more is Matter of Trust has been mobilized in the clean up efforts in the Gulf. They are now in Wave 8 of their efforts of getting hairmats out to contaminated areas. You can help by donating hair or supplies. More information can be found on how you can get involved by going to their website. The more hair that is donated and made into hair mats means the less toxic chemicals mixed into the ocean. Which to me, seems like a much better way to go about clean up efforts.