Josephine’s efforts to help clean up the Gulf

Over the last year Josephine’s has been working with the “Matter of Trust” Non profit organization in an effort to clean up access oil in our precious oceans. All hair that is cut at Josephine’s is delivered to “Matter of Trust” to produce Oil Spill hair mats. Hair that is collected by “Matter of Trust” is threaded together to produce mats that are tossed out to sea to collect access oil. Have you ever noticed that your hair becomes very oily after not washing it for a few days? Hair is one of the most absorbent materials out there which is why it has been so useful in the face of recent oil spill pollution disasters.  In San Francisco, human hair demonstrated its effectiveness for an oil spill cleanup in 2007 when a ship ran into the Bay Bridge and started leaking oil.  When 58,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled from the container ship Cosco Busan, volunteers headed to the beaches armed with mats made out of human hair and was able to absorb more than 22,000 gallons. All the hair mats that soaked up the sticky globs of oil came from “Matter of Trust”. “Matter of trust” is back in action and so is Josephine’s more than ever since the recent catastrophic explosion that caused an oil spill from a BP offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico April 30th. The spill is releasing 5,000 barrels of oil per day. With the help of salons and volunteers around the country more than 450,000 pounds of hair has been collected with 200 pounds and counting collected by Josephine’s. The hair is being sent directly to the Matter of Trust warehouse near the Gulf. Learn more about “Matter of Trust” oil spill hair mats and how you can help today by visiting http://matteroftrust.org/297/clean-wave-program.

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