Hair to clean up oil spills.

Thousands of oil spills happen every year, but they are small and don’t even spill a barrel of oil. Though one big oil spill happens each year. Oil is horrible for ecosystems and animals, when there is an oil spill the oil can get on marine life as well as some shore life like segals and otters.When oil gets on animals like birds, their feathers are covered in oil and its hard for them to regulate their body temperature and they could also drown. Birds could also ingest the oil, poisoning them. Oil can affect ecosystems by making food for sealife poorer quality or less available. 

A study from University of Technology Sydney showed that fur and human hair are the best for cleaning up oil spills. Which makes sense, our hair gets oily and absorbs the oil, and then of course we shower and wash it out with shampoo. So people have been donating their hair to get turned into hair mats. So when there is an oil spill, they collect the oil just by running the hair mat through the oil, the hair absorbs the oil. Even hair salons are donating their extra hair they cut off. The company cleans the hair and sorts it then turns it into mats.

I think this is great for helping oil spills.  It would be great if our hair salons donated their extra hair to this good cause. I wish I could donate my hair, but I get my hair cut at a salon and I cant really just pick my hair off from the ground...

if you would like to know more here is a video that explains the prosess really well. https://youtu.be/k8fsVzyj-PA

 

QUESTIONS 

Would you donate your hair to help clean up oil spils?

Do you think our local salons should donate the hair they cut?

What are your thoughts about oil spills. 

 

 

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    • Yeah, I do think that it would have to be a small and near to the coast for the Matter of Trust foundation to clean it up. I have only heard of them cleaning oil spills on the coast like on the Sanfrancisco Beach in 2007. Hair mats are not the perfect solution and Matter of Trust knows that and they are reasearching on a better way.

  • I think after the hair is off my head, they can do whatever they want with it. I mean, im not going to cut it super short to a length I dont want just to donate it, but if I cut it the length I want and afterwards they ask if I wanted to donate it then sure. I kind of think after your hair is off your head why do you care what happens to it? 

  • I think that using hair to clean up oil spills would be a good idea if it actually works, but it seems pretty small scale to me. I think that if people were really going to commit to doing this, then people probably should donate their hair. But overall, I don't think that this will be much of a long-term solution, so I wouldn't donate my hair for that. 

  • I think that oil spills just happen and it is part of the risk. People need to realize that not all life will be just fine and dandy. I think that we could pitch in and donate hair to make it better. In many places oil spills a lot and you just have to do your best to clean it up.

  • I think that using hair to clean up oil spills would be a good idea if it actually works, but it seems pretty small scale to me. I think that if people were really going to commit to doing this, then people probably should donate their hair. But overall, I don't think that this will be much of a long term solution, so I wouldn't donate my hair for that. 

    • I disagree, in the video it actually does work, one single hair mat can absorb 1.5 gallons of oil. But yes, right now it does seem pretty small scale, these mats have not cleaned up a large headline spill yet. People are already commited to this, the foundation Matter of Trust is the main producer of the mats and over half of their products are bought by the US Airforce and other governmental departments. 

  • I would donate my hair to clean up oil spills. Oil spills are not very good for the environment and if my hair can help clean it up, then I would 100% donate. Iowa isn't anywhere near oil spills, so I don't think local salons would want to donate because they would have to ship the hair out. 

  • Personally, I would not donate my hair to help clean up oil spills. Oil spills are bad and there are better ways and cleaning oil spills up instead of using hair. Oil spills are very harmful to the environment. It contaminates the ocean and can hurt much wildlife, so the faster cleaned up the better for the environment.

  • I personally would not care what they do to the hair that my hairdresser cuts from me. I wouldn't go out of my way to do that, like I wouldn't deliberatly cut my hair to a style I don't want, just get it donated into a mat if I didn't really want to. Now, if I were to decide to cut my hair to a different style, and after they cut it, they ask if they can donate it to a certain cause, I wouldn't care, as long as I got the style I want. 

  • I dont think that all of the hair donations should go to the oil spill but some because most salons donate the hair to make wigs for cancer patients. I dont think that the oil spills should take over the hair donations. I think that they should find other ways to clean up oil spills.

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