Lisa Gautier and her companion Patrice Gautier based Matter of Belief in 1998 with the hopes of having the ability to sort out environmental points. They quickly met up with Phillip McCrory, a hair-dresser from Alabama, who had the thought for hair mats being a great tool for oily-cleanup when he’d seen an otter being rescued from the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska with its fur matted in oil.
McCrory examined his idea at house with 5lbs of hair from his salon stuffed into his spouse’s pantyhose and a kiddie pool in his yard. One million-dollar thought was born. Hair has a novel capability to adsorb – reasonably than soak up – oil. When hair comes into contact with oil, the oil molecules follow the floor of the hair, making a movie that holds quick. Only a dip will do it!
Three years later, the thought was confirmed at scale when an oil tanker ran aground within the Galapagos Islands. Matter of Belief was capable of help within the cleanup with their felted hair mats.
It takes simply 1.1 lbs (500 grams) of hair to create a two-foot sq., one-inch thick (60x60x2.5cm) mat, which may take in roughly 1.5 gallons (5.6 liters) of oil. With practically one million licensed hair salons within the US that may produce round a pound of hair waste per day, there is no scarcity of supplies. In reality, a lot of the firm’s supplies come donated from barber outlets and salons. “I can all the time inform after we get a bundle from L.A. – blonde blonde blonde!”, Lisa Jokes. Matter of Belief has obtained donations from EVERY zip code in the US.
It is not simply human hair; the staff additionally makes use of different waste fibers like fleece, pet hair, and even laundry lint out of your dryer. They’ve developed their very own felting machine particularly to make the sq. two-by-two foot mats.
Matter of Belief has now felted over 300,000 oil cleanup booms, and over 40,000 hair mats for main catastrophe tasks, together with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In response to Gautier, roughly half of its stock is bought by organizations such because the US Division of Protection whereas the opposite half is donated – sometimes to volunteers. If only a single quart (approx 1 liter) of oil have been to enter a water provide, it may probably contaminate as much as one million gallons (3.8 million liters) of ingesting water.
The usual methodology for cleansing oil spills on sea or land is with polypropylene booms, nonetheless, polypropylene is a non-biodegradable plastic that results in landfills. Thoughts you, the hair mats aren’t the right resolution themselves because it stands. The one methods to get rid of them are to compost or incinerate them. Each choices have their very own issues – however the staff is working to determine methods to extract the oils from the hair and make the mats reusable. A wholesome lather, rinse, repeat is likely to be the answer?
Take a peek at Matter of Belief’s video explaining precisely how and what they do after which resolve how grossed out you might be…or aren’t!
Supply: Matter of Belief