PHOTO GALLERY: OCEAN BEACH OIL SPILL ECO-CLEANUP WITH HAIRMATS (More information / updates)




Millions of half-dollar sized oil blobs are all over Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California with in 24 hours after the Cosco-Busan Oil Spill November 7, 2007



Mats made from human hair slurp of the oily blobs at the slightest touch. We go to Incident Command and offer to donate the official crews over 1000 hairmats, between Matter of Trust and SF Department of the Environment (we'd just gotten them a bunch for their Used Motor Oil Collection Program. Incident Command needed said they needed time to review our offer.



Byron Cleary and friends Kathleen Egan and Darin Rosas (surfers) are organizing concerned citizens to clean up the beaches that official crews can't get to yet. Thanks to Monica at Zunasurf.com they're expecting quite a turn out, so we've ask them if they want some hairmats and they said ABSOLUTELY!

Ocean Beach Oil Spill Grassroots Cleanup San Francisco, California, Friday, November 9, 2007

Owner worries because his dog "Sassy" ran into an oily part and got it all over his paws.

Matter of Trust's volunteers Cynthia Wong and John, and Cynthia Knowles, SF Department of the Environment, loading donated hairmats to take to Ocean Beach.

More hairmats - Kill The Spill Volunteers are loading up another van. Each of these mats, made from only human hair clippings, is about 1/2 inch thick, 2 ft wide x 3 ft long and each square foot can soak up about 1 quart of oil and be wrung out and used again up to 100 times!

Oil sheen on beach.



Volunteers on Ocean Beach San Francisco, CA Friday November 9, 2007 - "We LOVE these hairmats!"

Volunteers carrying oil soaked hairmats to designated toxic waste spot.

Rain soaked volunteers on Saturday's oil spill clean-up. November 10th, 2007 come back to Kill The Spill tent to get some donated coffee from Pete's and Starbucks. See our Thank you page

Oil coated dead seal on Ocean Beach at Sloat, Saturday November 10, 2007.

More rain soaked, dedicated volunteers Saturday November 10, 2007



Over 300 White Tyvex suits donated by all 4 Cole Hardware Stores, Matter of Trust and San Francisco Recycling and Disposal. See our Thank you page

Volunteer Steffan Neukerman shows how oily the gloves get, cleaning Ocean Beach in San Francisco, on rainy Saturday November 10, 2007.

Cynthia Knowles, SF Department of the Environment, Sunday November 11, 2007, sunny but windy!



Over 500 volunteers so we're cutting the hairmats in half so we have enough!

Get your suit, get your gloves, get your hairmats - Kill The Spill grassroots headquarters at Taraval and Ocean Beach
Donated water, La Boulange pastries and Georgio's Pizza! See our Thank you page!


First we collected all the bags of oily hairmats, and then we moved them to tarped areas away from the high tide line. This is one of 3 stacks we collected and hope to compost with the Oily-Hairmat-Eating Oyster Mushrooms, if we get permission. See more details.

Yay! We're going to be official! EPA Volunteer Certification sessions begin. Coordinators at this Wednesday night meeting are surprised that turn out is over 800 people, they were expecting 350.



Phil McCrory, Inventor of the hairmats and barber with Lisa Gautier, Executive Director and Founder of Matter of Trust at Ocean Beach



Oily-Hairmat-Eating Mushroom Compost meeting over pizza at Lisa Gautier's house. Huge thanks to volunteers Jennifer Gorospe, Lori Schwilling, Phil McCrory, Iris Aluf Medina Fresko, Alicia Snow, (and Nanette Gautier)



Teams of Certified volunteers suited up and ready to beach clean!




Mike Plant and Public Utilities Commission team organizing the Ocean Beach Official Cleanup



November 22, 2007, Thanksgiving day volunteers are asked to come to one last Ocean Beach clean up. There isn't much oil, but there is an odd fluorescent green tinge to the large amount of "sewage foam"??? accumulated on the beach. Volunteers soak it right up with the hairmats, so it may be oil of some kind.

See our Oily-Hairmat-Eating Mushroom Treatability Study Photos