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. 

 

 

You need to be a member of History 360 to add comments!

Join History 360

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies

  • I think that donating hair would be a good way to help if it actually works. Oil spills are terrible for the environment and if it is as easy as people donating hair and salons donating all the hair that they cut, then people should do it. I think I would probably do it if it actually did work well.

  • I think that using hair to clean oil spills is a great way to reuse something that previously had no use, using hair not only will help clean up the spills but will minimize the number of animals that get oil on their fur or skin. 

  • I think that using hair to clean up oil spills is a good idea if it works well. It is a great way to recycle hair. I think it's up to the salons whether or not they want to donate the hair they cut to oil spills. Some already donate hair to other well-deserving causes too.

  • I believe that using hair to help clean up oil spills helps immensely and recycles the hair that is thrown away everyday. Barbers and hairdressers have tons of hair each day. Why waste it when it can be recycled and be used when the person that it can off of didn’t want it?

  • I would probably donate my hair to help clean up oil spills because my hair would be going toward a good cause. I personally think that salons should donate the hair that they cut, and it would help greatly when trying to help clean up oil spills. I think that oil spills are very harmful to the ocean and to all of the life that lives inside of it. 

  • Yes, I would donate my hair to help clean up oil spills. It obviously seems like it's going to a good cause, and it seems like a fine solution to the oil spills. Honestly, I think the salons here could split the hair up, half to clean oil spills and the other half for wigs. Afterall people without hair will still want to purchase wigs. Oil spills seem like a really bad thing, I've seen pictures of oil in the ocean and it's really sad for the sea life, and wildlife dies from them.

  • I think oil spillings are terrible for the environment. If I was already planning to cut my hair, then yes I would donate the cuttings. I don't think hair salons here in Iowa would donate any of the hair they cut just because we don't live by an ocean. Other than that I think that states that do live near oceans should have salons help a little by giving some of the hair cuttings. This also depends on the hair salons themselves and what they choose to do. 

  • I would donate my hair if I was already planning on getting my hiarcut. Iowa isn't close to any oil spills or oceans so I don't think that any local salons would choose to donate the hair they cut unless they had a personal connection to it or state government chose to make a law about it. 

  • I think that oil spils are horrible for the environment and can harm marine life and sea plants. I would donate my hair to help clean up oil spills. It is pretty unique and your hair will eventually grow back, so its not a permanent thing. It would be great if salons donated the extra hair to clean oil spills, since the hair is already cut and will probably be thrown away anyways.

  • I would love to donate my hair to help clean up oil spills, it sounds like a pretty cool idea and I think it should be better advertised so more salons can help donate hair. But wouldn't the spill have to be relatively small for it to work? all the other oil spills I have been made aware of have been pretty big so I am kinda skeptical about how well this could work.

This reply was deleted.
eXTReMe Tracker