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How your split ends can help clean oil spills

Vox | February 18, 2026



Hair isn’t just for top knots; it can protect the ocean too.

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While oil spills have declined over the years, they still happen, and when they do, it can be devastating to the environment. One natural way to help contain oil spills is through the use of hair booms and hair mats. Hair is a naturally hydrophobic and biosorbent, which means, it repels water and can collect heavy metals and other contaminants, like oil.

The more popular methods to contain oil spills use synthetic materials and chemicals, which can be costly and just as dangerous to environment. So, it’s worth exploring eco-friendly ways to clean up the ocean and other waterways.

You can learn more about how hair-booms and hair mats can be used during oil spills on Matter of Trust’s website: https://matteroftrust.org/297/clean-wave-program

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Comments

This post currently has 46 comments.

  7. @handywijaya3689

    February 18, 2026 at 7:35 pm

    Cause it's unnecessary. In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, we discovered microbes that eat hydrocarbons and they consumed 25 million barrels of the crude that spilled. These microbes are available commercially from a company in Markham Ontario Canada called Eat Oils. Product is called BT200.

  11. @themaster1941

    February 18, 2026 at 7:35 pm

    On Peru 6K litres of petrol have been spilled on an accident last week, volunteers are trying to clean up with any means they got and this fact of hair helping cleaning got viral. But some people did the math and ended up that we need tons of hair to clean the sea, is it really helpful to try an clean with homemade solutions? Because it got very viral most of the country is donating hair to do the cleaning
    But everything mentioned is done by volunteers, not by the company that did the spilling nor the government
    So.. it will also help? Or there will be a consequence afterwards like, where will all the used hair go to? I'm really curious about this case

  12. @SexyMsFirefly

    February 18, 2026 at 7:35 pm

    I don't understand why our American government isn't using the hair method. Someone must be getting a kickback to use the chemicals and other non helpful ways of clean up.

  15. @mililune7886

    February 18, 2026 at 7:35 pm

    What's a nice idea ! I've in my country floods and massive fuel of broken warming fuel tank making a oils in the river… How many fuel could hair boom absorb and what are you doing with the hair after oil ? Could you wash them with a shampoo ??? Thank you for the idea !!!

  37. @calvotix

    February 18, 2026 at 7:35 pm

    This is the silliest solution I've ever seen. Oil booms such as these are only used on small scale sites, not for emergency scenarios (and these look pretty shotty compared to the typical oil adsorbent booms out there). Large oil spills use booms for containment, not collection; these hair booms would be ineffective.
    That this video shows skimmers and fire as being negative options is also silly, but I do agree, chemical dispersants are terrible. Chemical dispersants = out of site out of mind.

  41. @RixMorales

    February 18, 2026 at 7:35 pm

    The sad thing about this is that the oil company behind the cause of oil spill is not always the first one to respond and initiate cleanup. It's always the NGOs, the government or someone else

  44. @_kylestian1623

    February 18, 2026 at 7:35 pm

    Hey guys my name is Kyle and I'm here to spread the Gospel everywhere!
    Verse of the day:
    Philippians 4:7 NLT
    Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus

Comments are closed.

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