Hair and 'Shrooms to Clean San Francisco's Beaches
- added November 20, 2007
- 2 responses
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- vavavicky
- added this
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- Earth and Science (12541)
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Lisa Gautier, who provided the volunteers with 1,000 hair mats, explained that hair acts as a sponge, naturally absorbing the oil from both air and water. She runs Matter of Trust, a nonprofit that matches businesses' donations to smaller, needy nonprofits; her organization makes money in part by collecting human hair from local salons, sending them to Georgia to be woven into mats before selling them to the SF Department of the Environment to soak up used motor oil.
So where exactly do the mushrooms factor in? Once the hair mats have absorbed the oil, oyster mushrooms begin to grow on the mats, consuming the viscous substance. After the mushrooms have finished absorbing all the oil - a process that takes about 12 weeks - the hair mats can be reused as nontoxic compost.
So where exactly do the mushrooms factor in? Once the hair mats have absorbed the oil, oyster mushrooms begin to grow on the mats, consuming the viscous substance. After the mushrooms have finished absorbing all the oil - a process that takes about 12 weeks - the hair mats can be reused as nontoxic compost.
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Can they be usedto pick up oil from beaches and the ocean? If yes, those could come in handy right about now! -
And could they sell the oyster mushrooms for human or other consumption? Then not only do we clean up the oil, we do it in such a way we do it in such a way we just end up with manure to feed the earth! What a wonderful story!
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- skrelnick23
- 10 months ago
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