Easy Way to Help with the Gulf Oil Spill
One of my biggest objections to Locks of Love is that they don't tell you they have some rather strict requirements for hair used in wig-making for cancer patients. Most of the hair they receive can't be used because it's been permed, or color-treated or is too curly or has too high a percentage of gray hair or doesn't have the right tensile strength. They just take the hair and discard what they can't use.
Another objection is that most men can't contribute because their hair often isn't long enough.
If your hair is among the hair types that can't be used for Locks of Love, you just throw your cut hair away, right?
But you don't have to. Your hair can serve a higher purpose - it can help clean oil spills, then be used to grow yummy mushrooms or to raise worms for worm castings.
And it's not just your hair - your pets can get involved, too.
Contact Matter of Trust for a shipping location and contact your hair stylist or barber and your pet groomer to start collecting clean debris-free hair, fur, and feathers (yes, feathers for those with birds) to clean up our oil-spilled waters.
They also need clean pantyhose (runs are fine, holes are not) to use to make oil spill booms.
If you're a teacher, they have a teacher's handout, and posters you can download and print, and all kinds of nifty things.
Itzl doesn't produce a lot of hair, but Dogmatyx (an Irish Wolfhound), and Drooly (a Cairn Terrier), and the cats (both long-haired) definitely do, especially now when they are still shedding their winter coats. Itzl's vet and groomer can collect hair, too.
If you have an urban chicken coop, or keep pets whose hair is too short for spinning into yarn (meat rabbits, for example, or goats) or even have pets that do produce lots of hair but you don't want to bother with spinning or packing it up to sell to spinners (horse hair, sheep wool that isn't up to par or wool waste...) and you're interested in doing something about the oil spill but never knew what - here's an easy thing to do.