December 28, 2007

Hair today, (oil) gone tomorrow

By Bill Highlander
Editor

When an oil tanker crashed into the Bay Bridge on Nov. 7, 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil gushed in the San Francisco bay. Although controversy swirls around who was responsible and the time it took to mitigate the damage, volunteers started early the following day to clean up the mess.

Mario Quezada shows the hair mat that is effective in cleaning up oil spills.

Their most effective tools were mats made of human hair. Mario Quezada, in his second year as the exclusive west coast distributor of OttiMat, donated 1,000 of the square mats to be used soak up the oil. “I was amazed to see more than 800 volunteers helping the clean the beaches and I feel very proud that I could help,” said Quezada.

An entrepreneur from Alabama had noted that the after the infamous Valdez spill, pictures showed oil-soaked otters and that started him thinking about hair as a possible means of a sort of sponge to take up the oil. Phil McCoy found that human hair adsorbed the oil that could be wrung out of the hair mats and began a company to market them.
NASA successfully tested the efficacy of human hair in soaking up oil and then recovering the oil. Working with the wig industry using human hair from Asia and a unique weaving process, McCoy developed the OttiMat.

Quezada, a resident of Silver Creek Valley Country Club, said the market is starting to accept the product but clean-up companies are reluctant to give up their more traditional, more profitable methods. But environmental groups are catching on, and whenever an oil spill occurs, the interest spikes.

The hair mats have another use in preventing weeds and aiding growth of flora. Quezada’s landscaping business, Weed Out, has been successful in using the product in numerous projects.

For more information, visit the website www.oilspillrecovery.com.