Matter of Trust is Collecting Hair Clippings for a Great Cause

About a week ago I was in need of background noise while editing my manuscript and I came across a marathon of Tabitha’s Salon Take Over. I mean no offense to the show but it was the perfect thing as I truly just needed something I could ignore. Of course a few episodes in my ears perked up at the mention of Matter of Trust and I had to immediately put my editing aside for a few minutes of research.

The organization collects the scraps of hair that are cut off and swept up into a garbage can then they take them and fashion them into mats.

Now, before I hear a ton of comments like ‘eeew, I don’t want a hair mat!’ let me explain what these mats are used for and why.

Turns out that human hair is quite adept at retaining grease and oil and it, combined with other fibers such as feathers, furs and wools that were all headed for the landfill, can be fashioned into hand held mats that are used to clean up oil spills all along waterways. Cool!

As their website indicates there are upwards of 370,000 pounds of hair thrown away by just the hair salons in the United States every day, that’s a lot of hair that could be turned into mats.

Phil McCoy is the inventor of the hair mat and he is asking for every salon in the US to sign up to send in their hair clippings to help assist in cleaning up the 2,600+ oil spills that happen in and around our waterways every year. They even suggest reusing the boxes that salon product was shipped in to do it. What a fantastic environmental idea!

The only snag is that right now the old warehouse location is no longer adequate and they are seeking a new space for donations to be sent in but they strongly urge salons to sign up anyway with an email address as they will contact you as soon as they are ready to begin accepting the boxes again.

Sometimes the best way to discover something new is diversion. I was really excited to discover this organization and I hope all my salon friends (including my own hair dresser who I will be alerting about this program when I next see her in a couple weeks!) take full advantage of this way to turn waste into treasure and help our water ways!