So far, hair booms not part of oil cleanup

May 20, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

RALEIGH, N.C

Hair salons nationwide are sweeping up clippings, stuffing them in boxes and sending them to the Gulf Coast to help sop up oil. But the officials overseeing the massive crude cleanup say they aren’t using any hair. It is all apparently just being stored in warehouses in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.

Matter of Trust, a San Francisco-based charity, has been leading the effort in recent weeks, calling on barbers, beauticians and pet groomers to collect human and pet hair by the tons. The hair is stuffed in tubes of women’s hosiery, creating “booms” that soak up oil, the charity says. Hair collects oil from your scalp, so why not crude oil, too?

Matt Lewis, owner of the Sport Clips barbershop in Raleigh, said a store manager heard about Matter of Trust’s efforts, so Lewis registered the store on the group’s website, matteroftrust.org. Last week, Sport Clips sent 12 pounds of hair at a cost of $13 in shipping to an address in Louisiana, he said. He even persuaded Sport Clips’ corporate headquarters to get involved.

But hair booms are not being used in the cleanup of the exploded BP oil rig, according to Heath Seng, who is with the U.S. Coast Guard, on Wednesday. Mark Proegler, a spokesman for BP who is at the cleanup site, said crews are using only “regular, absorbent plastic booms.”

Even Matter of Trust’s website acknowledged earlier this week, “At this time BP is not soliciting or accepting [hair] donations.”

Thomas Birkland, a North Carolina State University public-policy professor who is an expert on disasters and environmental policy, said he is not surprised that people are sending hair, even if it is not being used.

“In any disaster, well-meaning people get together materials that they think will help,” said Birkland, who has extensively studied oil spills, including the Exxon Valdez.