Oil
Spill Hair Mats
- 2000-present
Matter
of Trust has collaborated with thousands of salons throughout the US and
abroad that donate their hair clippings to be made into mats that soak up
oil spills.
Salons generously pay out of pocket for postage to send their swept up hair clippings to a recycling depot in California provided by St. Vincent de Paul Society. This partnership program combines reuse, micro-economy and ecological oil spill clean up. Salons have free access to the Excess Access database so salons can be contacted in case of emergency oil spills. Last year there were 2,600 oil spills in the world, not all are high profile but most have an environmental impact.
There
are over 370,000 hair salons in the US and each cut about one pound of hair
a day! Matter of Trust does the outreach for the program through posters
in salons and media P/R. Posters also include
information about how hair is also a slow protein release and excellent
fertilizer for flower growers. For more information on hair as fertilizer
please see our friends at SmartGrow.
Salons
and Dog Groomers, Everyone Please Join In:
Sign up is FREE for salons on Excess Access - but the package
including the 3 posters costs a one time fee
of $10, if you want them. There is no obligation. Please sign up first,
before mailing in hair, so that we have you on our database and can contact
you for emergency spills or changes in address to send hair.
Salons please click on this link then scroll to the bottom BUSINESS
SIGN UP to donate hair.
In the Payment section - use the Hair Salons option
for free sign up or the Pay by check or Credit card options
if you do want the posters.
Once you have signed up...
This is the current address to send hair (starting May 2008), but still
subject to change, please check before every mailing:
Attn: Jesse Williams
Oil Spill Hair Mats
Matter of Trust.org
1960 Williams Street Suite B
San Leandro CA 94577
Instructions:
Please line boxes (recycled shampoo supply boxes work well) with plastic
garbage bags. Please no metal pins or clips (if possible, please no cigarette
butts, paper cups, papers, gum, etc.).
Yes,
individuals can also mail in to this warehouse, no matter
what they've done to their hair (permed, colored, straightened...) Pet
hair is ok to send in too - but not as efficient. As if Mother
Nature said "Only humans will be silly enough to spill large quantities
of oil. Better dangle the best solution in front of their eyes." If
you are with a business feel free to sign up. Individual hair donors don't
need to sign up for one time donations, but please feel free to contact
your salon and tell them about our program.
Yes all types and colors of hair can be donated, since everyone lays on
the beaches and swims in the waters. And especially since all the hair and
oil are removed as toxic waste. Our beaches have been used to hair, fur
and feathers since long before oil spills.
Matter
of Trust is partnering with The
East Bay Depot For Creative Reuse and St. Vincent de Paul Society, Alameda
and will coordinate to have the donated hair from thousands of US salons
to be needlepunched on a continual basis. This will provide jobs and training
- a pathway out of poverty for those transitioning out of foster care -
at risk youth 18-22 years old. Matter of Trust is currently fundraising
for this project (please see our Contribute
page). The mats will be donated to emergency oil spills
and sold to municipalities for use in routine leaks and spills. Phil McCrory
(inventor of the hair mat) and Smartgrow.net have generously donated to
Matter of Trust license to make the these patented mats. Now our goal is
to organize convenient collection of hair from salons, so that they do not
have to pay to mail the hair in future. Hair is collected as a commodity
in China, and we believe it should be here, too. We are looking at steps
to coordinate pick up from the salons but for now the project relies on
their generosity.
We
are also accepting clean, used, runned nylons which we double, cut and stuff
with the hair to make "booms" that surround and contain as well
as soak up oil spills.