I assume you've heard about the hair booms by now.  Hair and other natural fibers like feathers and animal fleece are excellent at sopping up spilled oil.  After the Deep Water Horizon spill, a non-profit organization called Matter Of Trust began collecting hair clippings to stuff into nylons, to make floating booms that would soak up the oil.  But is it even happening?  The information is conflicting, to say the least!

On May 24th, the Huffington Post reported that "hundreds of thousands of pounds of hair" was piling up in warehouses across the gulf, and that "BP and the U.S. Coast Guard say they are not using hair to sop up the oil, and don't plan to."  The report added that Matter of Trust had released a statement that "there had been a misunderstanding with BP."

Furthermore, engineers for the Coast Guard had done studies that showed that "using the hair was not feasible, and the organizations collecting the hair were asked to stop doing so."  The Coast Guard is sopping up the spill with a material called "sorbent," which works better than nylons stuffed with hair.  And there is no shortage of sorbent, thus no need for a nation-wide hair trimmings drive.

Despite all this, the Matter of Trust website continues to tout the hair booms, and to solicit donations.  What's going on?  

According to the FAQ on their website, although BP and the Coast Guard have rejected the hair boom donations, "Gulf municipalities and harbors are taking the donated natural fiber boom to protect their shores whereever they can."  Although Matter of Trust is soliciting sign-ups on their website, buried deep within their FAQ is a mumbled request not to send any more hair right now.  

Matter of Trust reports that their volunteers have stuffed 10 miles of booms already, and they estimate that there is another 15 miles' worth of boom stored up in their warehouses.  However, they will continue to collect locally in the event of another spill.

And at the same time, at other points in their website and FAQ they continue to solicit donations.

I struggle against my own cynical side, which points out that you can make money selling hair and animal fibers.  Manufacturers buy them up by the bale in order to serve as stuffing and other raw materials.  There's not enough money in it to make it worthwhile to buy hair clippings just in order to resell them, of course.  But enough that if an outpouring of public sentiment results in dozens of warehouses full of fibers, that the proceeds could certainly help carry your charity through some hard times.

The past few years have been rough on non-profits of all stripes.  And keep in mind that Matter of Trust's main charter is not to protect the oceans, but to redistribute wealth and surplus.   

I definitely don't want to believe that the hair boom thing is a scam.  But I have to admit, I harbor some serious doubts.

Image copyright Matter of Trust