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Ever heard of Hair mats...?!

 


Mats in the world of cleaning are aids that allow for a pro-active management of cleaning issues such as dirts, dust, debris and the likes. Yet with the growing wave for sustainable measures to carry out production and consumption responsibly (as envisioned in the Sustainable Development Goals -SDG 12 to be precise) juxtaposed with the undeniable usefulness of cleaning mats, there must be more sustainable ways or measures of producing mats as opposed to the popularly used non-sustainably created ones like the Propylene mats.

One of such is what we discovered as the Matter of Trust strategy for saving the environment. Wow…! How noble!

Basically, Matter of Trust being an ecological non-profit, in existence for more than 20years, that collects waste fibers that range from hair and fur clippings, fleece, feathers and laundry lints create hair mats that can aid oil spill cleanups. Wao! What an elegant solution to a teething issue!

Their modus operandi is to keep collecting hair donations from hair salons, pet groomers and farmers around the world to enable the making of these aforementioned hair mats.

It is said that the propylene mats commonly used for oil spillage cleanups are non-biodegradable plastics made from fuel fossils which implies the need to drill the ground towards more oil extraction. On the contrary 9though not entirely perfect), hair mats can be said to be non-toxic, bio-degradable, renewable and extremely absorbent.

According to Matter of Trust, human hair is able to absorb 5times its weight in oil; therefore, a litre of oil can be soaked by a pound of hair in one minute. Wow! Another benefit of the hair mat, it can be a very quick solution especially in the right contexts.

As with every discovery, there promises to be downsides and imperfections that call for improvement and continuous development yet the Hair mat originating from San Francisco, United States of America is argued to be easy to make, creates more green jobs as a result, effective in waste reduction in landfills, even cleans water and promotes renewable resources  ( Paraphrasing Lisa Gaultier- Matter of Trust co-founder and President, in her words to CNN)

Go to Human Hair Is a Surprising Secret Weapon for Cleaning Up Oil Spills (treehugger.com) for read more details on this amazing discovery and sustainability feat.

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