Solution to prevent oil pollution with human hair

Carpets made from hair and fur can be used to clean up small oil spills after traffic accidents on the road or large oil spills at sea.

The dangers of oil spills

Lisa Gautier, founder of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Matter of Trust (MOT), said the unit receives nearly a dozen hair packs a day.

MOT volunteers use hair mats to clean up oil on the road.

Hair may be a waste to many people, but it is a treasure here. At MOT's factory, donated hairs will be turned into carpets to absorb oil spilled on land or used as buoys against oil spills at sea.

Usually, people use PP mats to clean the oil on the soil. However, PP plastic is not biodegradable and to produce PP requires more oil extraction. Meanwhile, hair is an eco-friendly resource that can absorb up to 5 times its weight in oil and importantly, is in abundance.

"There are about 900,000 licensed barbershops in the US. Each salon can easily get at least 1 pound of hair a week (0.45 kg)," says Gautier.

Gautier added: "It makes much more sense to use a renewable natural resource to clean up the spill than to use more oil to clean it up."

Oil spills can contaminate drinking water sources, endanger public health, harm flora and fauna, as well as damage the economy.

In 2021, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded 175 oil spills at sea and on land in this country alone. It is estimated that globally about 10,000 tons of oil have been lost to the environment due to oil tanker spills.

According to the MOT, with just 1 liter of oil entering a water supply, 1 million gallons (4.5 million liters) of drinking water can become contaminated. So far this year, there have been major oil spills in Thailand and Peru, with spills estimated at more than 500,000 gallons (2.2 million liters).

According to Gautier, oil spills account for only about 5% of global oil pollution. The more common sources of pollution are leaks from road vehicles seeping into the ground or oil seeping up from the seabed.

The movement to make hair carpets spreads

Hair mats are bundled into strips to deal with oil leaks from vehicles.

Gautier and her husband Patrice Gautier founded MOT in 1998 to address a wide range of environmental issues. Three years later, an oil tanker ran aground in San Cristobal and the Gautiers teamed up with hairstylist Philip McCrory to help clean up the spill.

Before that, in 1989, McCrory designed a prototype device that used hair to absorb oil. This device is tested by NASA and works well. Therefore, MOT teamed up with McCrory to develop floats and carpets made from hair and fur.

Every day, hair salons, pet stores and individuals send hair and hair to the MOT warehouse in San Francisco. Packages are checked for impurities such as debris, dirt or lice. Feathers and hair are separated and spread on a frame and then run through a specialized equipment for making carpets.

To make a rug with an area of ​​​​0.6m2, about 2.5cm thick, it takes about 0.5kg of hair. This mat can absorb up to 5.6 liters of oil.

Most of MOT's oil treatment is on land or in coastal and coastal oil spills. The organization says that about half of its products are acquired by organizations such as the US Air Force, government agencies; The other half is donated to the organization's cleaning volunteers.

According to Gautier, MOT has produced more than 300,000 absorbent buoys and more than 40,000 hair mats to clean up from minor leaks to major spills, including the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that spilled 160 million gallons of oil. in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010.

Hair and feathers are donated to MOT's factory to make oil-absorbing mats

According to environmental biologist Megan Murray, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney (Australia), the effectiveness of hair compared to PP is comparable and in some cases even better.

"Hair mats are very effective in preventing oil spills on land, but if crude oil is spilled on the sand, it is very difficult to absorb the oil with any material be it PP or human hair," said Vice-Chancellor of the University of Technology. Sydney said.

According to Ms. Murray, the biggest advantage of hair mats is that it is low cost, easy to access but not a perfect solution because it can only be used once. After use, the hair mat must be treated by burning or incubating in the soil. This land can no longer grow food crops. Now Murray is working on ways to extract oil from used hair rugs and reuse both carpet and oil.

MOT is currently expanding its network of partners in 17 countries around the globe. Partner centers can keep a small portion of the profits for larger projects. Since the designs were not patented, many other organizations and groups have begun to manufacture their own carpets and floats. Even so, Gautier is still happy to see the movement spreading.

"Anyone can make a hair mat. It creates jobs, cleans up water, reduces landfill waste and promotes renewable resources," says Gautier.