In 2006 50,000 gallons of industrial fuel leaked from a tanker when
it sank off the central island of Guimaras, which is next to the
Philippines.

This affected over 40,000 people and 120 miles of coastline, forcing
families to flee because of the overwhelming stench and high levels of
hydrogen sulfide (which can poison the central nervous system), benzene
(can damage bone marrow and lead to anemia) and toluene (can lead to
respiratory problems).

So what did the people of the Philippines use to clean up the oil spill? Human hair!

And what better place to get hair from humans who don’t really need it than a maximum security prison.

Over 15,000 inmates at a prison in Manila shaved their heads and
their chests to donate hair to the oil spill cause. One prisoner who
was convicted for drug smuggling said, “This is a contribution even
though it’s a small part.”

Along with the prisoners about 500 hair salons in metropolitan
Manila  collected hair clippings from their shops with a goal of
producing over 100,000 bags of hair.

So how did the whole hair idea come about?

Phil McCrory, a hairdresser from Alabama,  was watching coverage of
the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil when he saw an otter whose fur was saturated
with oil. He then wondered if hair could somehow clean up the oil.

Here’s the best part: He took five pounds of
hair, shoved it in his wife’s pantyhose and put it in a wading pool
with some oil. The hair didn’t exactly soak up the oil, but the tiny
oil particles clung to the hair shafts rather nicely.

Thus, with the help of some scientists and NASA engineers, they concluded that hair could indeed help clean up oil.

Besides human hair, chicken feathers have also been used to clean up oil, but the feathers rot and give off an unpleasant spell.

Here’s the whole story from MSNBC.

This really is a super green idea, and unless
a rare disease befalls the human race and we all lose our hair, we will
always have a natural product to help clean up the oil.

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