slick solution

On Aug. 11, 2006, M/T Solar I, an oil tanker, sank near one of the provinces here in the Philippines.  500,000 liters of fuel leaked out of it and into Guimaras Strait.  It damaged marine sanctuaries and reserves, and affected the provinces' fishing industry.  It was the worst oil spill of our country.

One of the surprising material they used in cleaning up the oil is human hair. Oil sticks to hair, as observed when a person hadn't shampooed for days.  A strand of hair has tiny scales that can hold small amounts of oil.  It's a process known as "adsorption".  A pound of hair can adsorb a quart of oil, and hair filled booms can be reused up to a hundred times.  And once they're all used up, the oily hair can be burned as fuel or be made into fertilizer, with the help of worms.

This clever idea came from Philipp McCrory, a hairdresser from Alabama.  He was watching a news segment about the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and saw how difficult it was to remove oil from an otter's fur.  He did a little experiment, filled a nylon stocking with human hair, dumped a gallon of motor oil on his son's plastic pool and dipped the stocking in it.  Two minutes later, the water was clean.  He patented the idea.

The government started a "Stop the Oil Spill" drive and about 15,000 inmates from a maximum security prison donated their hair.  Five hundred salons and schools around the country also participated in the activity.

Today, the same thing is being done to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  Matter of Trust, is a nonprofit organization participating in the campaign.  They contacted salons, pet groomers, wool farmers and others to solicit donations for hair, fur, wool or nylon pantyhose.  For those interested, you can click on their link above to sign up.  As stated by BBC News, donations of around 450,000 pounds of hair and fur are now arriving each day.  Some people even provided warehouse spaces near the area of the oil spill to house the hair.

Sources:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF14/1401.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14584306/
http://cbs4denver.com/local/hair.oil.spill.2.1680495.html
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/
http://www.matteroftrust.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guimaras_oil_spill