Innovative Chileans use discarded hair to clean up coasts

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A group of Chileans have taken hair discarded by hair salons or dog groomers and repurposed it to clean up hydrocarbon spills in water.

The Chilean chapter of the international ecological non-profit Matter of Trusts (MOT) project Petropelo employs tube-like devices it calls booms – made out mesh and filled with hair – to attract and trap oil in lakes, streams, coasts and other waterways.

MOT members also weave hair into mats that due to the natural porous qualities of hair, can be used to clean local waterways of oils, heavy metals and even bacteria.

“A single kilo of hair can clean on average five litres of hydrocarbons,” says Mattia Carenini, general manager of Matter of Trust Chile, adding it can sometimes clean upwards of nine litres.

“What we do with the booms is we recover hair from salons, we place it in nets and those nets stay in water sources for 30, 40 or 50 days. There they continuously capture (hydrocarbons). They capture it through adhesion,” says Carenini.

He adds that, “In the town of Laguna Verde, near Chile’s port city Valparaiso, the group placed four booms and a hair mat in a stream carrying greywater from a plant to the ocean. After about a month, the devices collected 15 kilograms of contaminants. We are regenerating the place little by little.”

A similar project by the group, Agropelo, uses hair to make woven mats that are used in soil to help retain soil moisture by reducing direct evaporation and saving part of irrigation water, according to the group.

The project works with salons across Chile. According to Carenini, the hair cut from one person can help clean up to 20,000 litres of water.