This Company Will Recycle Your Hair

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Matter of Trust's Innovative Oil Spill Cleanup

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Hair has a remarkable ability to absorb five times its weight in oil, making it a valuable tool for cleaning up oil spills. With around 900,000 licensed hair salons in the US as of February 2023, there is no shortage of hair available for this purpose.

How did hair mats become a solution for oil spill cleanup?

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In 1989, an Alabama hairdresser named Phil McCrory conducted an experiment in his backyard. He took hair cuttings from his salon, stuffed them into his wife's pantyhose, and threw them into a wading pool containing oil.

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When he noticed that the hair cleaned up the water in just a few minutes, he knew he was onto something. He took his prototype to NASA and they confirmed its efficacy.

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Later in 1998, Lisa Craig Gautier, President and Co-Founder of Matter of Trust, decided to address a range of environmental issues with her partner Patrice Gautier.

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Fast forward to 2001, when a tanker ran aground in one of the Galapagos Islands. McCrory had the solution, and Lisa and Patrice wanted to help with the cleanup effort.

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Matter of Trust and McCrory teamed up and began developing booms (long tubes used for spills at sea) and mats made from human and animal hair.

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Since then, they have continued to innovate and expand their efforts in environmental cleanup.

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An alternative to polypropylene mats for oil spill cleanup

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Large oil spills get covered in media, while many smaller ones go unreported. These can occur from road vehicles or during ship refueling. Although smaller in magnitude, they can still cause significant damage.

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It only takes one quart of oil to contaminate 1 million gallons of drinking water.

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The standard method for cleaning up oil spills is to use mats made from polypropylene, a type of plastic. Ironically, plastics are made from fossil fuels, which means that our efforts to prevent oil spills actually lead to more oil production.

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After these polypropylene mats are used, they are usually discarded in landfills where they can remain for centuries.

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Matter of Trust and a few other organizations are addressing this issue by replacing polypropylene with natural resources that are renewable, abundant, and inexpensive.

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Creating mats from recycled hair and other natural resources

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Matter of Trust collects human hair along with fur, wool, and fleece from salons, animal groomers, and farmers, and creates felted mats out of them. The packages are checked for contaminants such as debris, dirt, or lice. Then, the hair is separated, spread over a frame, and run through a custom-built felting machine to make the mats.

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It takes 500 grams of hair to create a two-foot square, one-inch thick mat, which can collect up to 1.5 gallons of oil. These mats are effective in soaking up petrochemicals in storm drains, wells, filtration systems, rivers, and oceans.

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As of 2022, Matter of Trust has produced over 300,000 booms and more than 40,000 hair mats for major cleanups, including the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and many more for non-emergency spills.

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Every day, salons, pet groomers, and individuals send hair cuttings to Matter of Trust’s San Francisco warehouse.

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If you are interested in donating, check out this video. You need to create an account to start donating and make sure that you're providing your hair without any rubber bands, and free of dirt, pins, leaves, or anything else that could damage the machines that sort the hair.

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