SARANAC LAKE - Instead of throwing its hair clippings in the garbage as usual, a local hair salon is collecting them and mailing them to a nonprofit group that will use it to help soak up oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
"I just figured, you have a commodity there that you're just going to throw in the trash anyway, so if someone can use it, all the better," said LeeAnn Baker of Saranac Lake, who works at Janie's for Hair, a salon on Lake Flower Avenue.
Janie Bevilacqua, who owns Janie's, said a customer of theirs who works for the state Department of Environmental Conservation gave them a flyer on the project, which is being coordinated by Matter of Trust, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco. Bevilacqua said she was too busy to give it much thought and threw the flyer away, but Baker pulled it out of the wastebasket and looked it up online.
"LeeAnn got right on the website and said, 'Yeah, we should really do this,'" Bevilacqua said. So they did.
Matter of Trust's website, www.matteroftrust.org, explains that the group is seeking human hair of any length as well as animal hair such as wool, alpaca fleece, pet groomers' clippings, horse hair, feathers and other animal fibers. The group also accepts nylon stockings or tights.
Volunteers stuff the hair into the stockings and tie them off to make tubes called "booms," which can be used for oil spill containment. Also, a company in China can make the hair into mats that do the same; the group hopes to make these mats in the U.S. soon.
It might seem gross to save hair clippings and ship them out by mail, but according to Baker, "It's not any grosser than the oil that is washing up onshore." Besides, she said, "The hair is clean because we wash it before we cut it.
"I just think it's a no-brainer."
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Contact Peter Crowley at 891-2600 ext. 22 orpcrowley@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.