Feel Good Silliness For The Day

Oil spill cleanup gets help from local hair salons and waitresses

"Suzana Pesa was disgusted by the images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that she saw on television. She jumped on the Internet and was soon linked to a Facebook effort to gather hair clippings from local salons to make hair booms to soak up the waves of black, greasy gook.
"When it happened, I was really upset," said Pesa, a dental assistant living in Mount Vernon. "I was looking for anything I could do to help."
In two weeks, Pesa gathered two garbage bags filled with hair clippings from 10 salons in Baltimore.
"There were a lot of people who were really helpful, and they asked if they could do anything else," she said. "They really wanted to help."

Hair salons nationwide have been gathering clippings in an attempt to make sausage-like hair booms, which are being used to absorb the oil in the Gulf.
Alan Kolb, owner of Sprout, an organic salon in Hampden, has been donating hair clippings for the past few years after a 2007 oil spill that affected San Francisco Bay.
"The idea of recycling something that is a byproduct of our operation just made sense with our philosophy," Kolb said. "If we have something that is useful to someone else, we'll do it."
Since the Gulf spill, Kolb estimates that his salon has gathered up to 200 pounds of human hair.
The hair boom effort has also gotten help from the Hooters restaurant chain.
Employees have been donating laundered pantyhose for Project Pantyhose, which uses it to make the casing for the hair, fur and fleece that absorbs the oil."