Hair Clippings Save Marine Life

Saving otters, birds and other marine life is all in a day’s work for many salons and beauty schools across the country. How can your salon or cosmetology school help care for our oceans and the creatures in it? By donating hair clippings to the Master of Trust program, Hair for Oil Spills!

As it turns out, hair is great at collecting oil out of the air and off of surfaces like the water. It’s adsorbent, meaning it clings to the pollutants (whereas absorbent means to soak up the pollutants). Participants in the Hair for Oil Spills program stuff loose, washed hair into nylon stockings. The stockings get made into “booms” which surround and soak up oil spills. Hair mats are also made for emergency oil spills and for oiled bird and mammal cages.

More than 370,000 hair salons in the United States collect about one pound of hair per day. (That’s 135 million pounds of hair per year for those who are keeping track.) The salons sweep up the hair clippings into plastic garbage bags, reuse the large boxes they get from shampoo deliveries and mail the hair.

Help your salon or beauty school help Planet Earth by joining this program. Find out more information and sign up for the Matter of Trust Hair for Oil Spills program here. It’s easy to help save our environment with excess hair. Besides, how can you resist the cute little otter guy?