How Can Hair Donations Help Contain Peru's Oil Spill Damage?

In a nationwide campaign, Peruvian people have united in order to contain the oil spill. Beauty salons and barbers joined their hands and started a viral campaign to collect hair with the aim of controlling the oil spill damage.

The Hair donation campaign was well liked by citizens, who rushed toward the nearest salons to help their country which they described as pro-environment. 

On January 15, there was an oil spill in Ventanilla, in the port province of Callao, in Lima, Peru. According to sources, the oil spill’s effect hit 3 square kilometers of beach and sea, and the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment announced this Saturday an environmental emergency for 90 days, in the geographical area of ​​the affected Peruvian coast.

Peru’s local media justified using human hair to stop the damage of the oil spill saying that the high content of hair cuticle makes it a “highly hydrophobic biosorbent,” with a very porous cortex that traps various types of contaminants. In fact, this is believed to be a very old technique. 

The aim of the campaign is to collect as much hair as possible to form cylinders of hair contained in meshes, which will do the work of absorbing the hydrocarbon spilled in the Ventanilla Sea, Archyworldys reported.

The hair campaign was launched by Hair Boom Peru Oficial where several cities have joined since January 22.

The government said 21 beaches on the Pacific coast were contaminated by an oil spill at a refinery run by Spain-based Repsol, following surging waves caused by the eruption of an underwater volcano near Tonga.