Waterbury Salon Donates Locks for Oil Cleanup

A Waterbury hair salon is donating locks not to Locks for Love, but to Louisiana to help clean up the Gulf Coast spill.

While this idea might have you scratching your head, Shears’ Gallery is one of about 90,000 hair salons nationwide that are sending their trimmings to Matter of Trust, reports the Waterbury Republican-American.

Matter of Trust, is a 12-year-old charity out of San Francisco that matches the hair with groups of Gulf Coast volunteers.

These volunteers then stuff the trimmings into pantyhose and use them to soak up the oil in the water and to uses as floating booms.

“It’s not like I need it anymore,” Linda Friez told the Register. “It’s a form of recycling for a very, very good cause. If I can help try to make the best of a bad situation, I’m all for that. It’s an unusual way to help, but I’m happy to do it.”

So far, Matter of Trust has nearly 400,000 pounds of hair and fur en route to the Gulf Coast.

According to the paper, volunteers are holding “Boom-B-Q” parties where they get together and stuff hair into the pantyhose using interesting devices such as toilet plungers.

“We shampoo our hair regularly because hair naturally absorbs oil. For past spills such as the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, these simple booms have been highly effective and efficient at cleaning up oil,” says Lisa Craig Gautier, Executive Director of Matter of Trust.

All these donations could very well save the beaches the wildlife. Since last month’s oilrig explosion, millions of gallons of oil have spilled into the Gulf waters.

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Waterbury-Salon-Helps-In-Oil-Cleanup-Effort-93266704.html