SAN FRANCISCO BAY OIL SPILL Their mats absorb the slick stuff, then oyster mushrooms turn it to compost Lisa Gautier shows how the globs of oil stick to the hair mats. Lisa Gautier operates a nonprofit called matteroftrust.org that reuses products. She is providing...
Lisa Gautier’s environmentalist career didn’t begin with a treetop hunger strike or a bracing voyage on a Greenpeace boat. It began with an old rug. “I bought a new rug and I didn’t know what to do with the old one,” says the 36-year-old San Franciscan. So Gautier...
The deluge of closures and cutbacks at tech startups is creating at least one beneficial side effect. Charity workers who distribute furniture and gadgetry that companies leave behind are finding themselves with plenty of stock. That’s how it seems at...
In 1989, Phillip McCrory watched a CNN story on the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Seeing the difficulty volunteers were having cleaning oil from the fur of otters, McCrory wondered if perhaps human hair could be used to soak up oil. His curiosity could revolutionize how we...
