A trim for the Gulf Coast

Carrie Holman of Fredericktown, manager of Douglas Education Center's cosmetology school, center, and her student, Kristina Bartley, are saving hair in a national environmental project to use it to create booms to collect oil from the spill accumulating on the Gulf Coast. They are shown last week cutting the hair of Sydney DeCurtis, 7, of Texas, at the Monessen, Pa., academy. (Observer-Reporter photo)

Contributing to efforts to clean up the Gulf Coast oil spill disaster is as easy as getting a hair cut.

Salons across the United States are saving hair and sending it to an environmental group that is stuffing it into used pantyhose to use as booms to help suck up all of that nasty oil that is accumulating on the beaches.

Here in the Mon Valley, Pa., the cosmetology academy at Douglas School of Business in Monessen, Pa., is embracing the project, which also was used in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill.

The Observer-Reporter newspaper carried a story about the initiative. Here is part of that story:

MONESSEN - When there is a world crisis, American hairdressers often find themselves in a profession that struggles to find a way to help.

So when Douglas Education Center in Monessen heard about a drive to collect hair to make booms to soak up the oil spilling onto the Gulf Coast, the cosmetology school decided to join the effort.

"What can hairdressers do to give back? We cut hair and nails," said Carrie Holman of Fredericktown, supervisor of the school's cosmetology academy.

The invitation from the American Association of Cosmetology Schools to participate arrived in the e-mail of Karen Nelson, director of the Monessen program.

"It indicated they were asking the schools to step up to the plate to help the Gulf oil disaster to save hair, which for us is easy," Nelson said.

The new semester began Tuesday and the following day the 24 students and their teachers had already collected half of the first four-pound box of hair for the environmental group, Matter of Trust.

The San Francisco-based nonprofit is asking salons, groomers, wool and alpaca fleece farmers, pet owners and "hairy individuals" to donate clean, cut hair to assist in the oil cleanup. The hair is stuffed into old nylon pantyhose to create booms that work well as an absorbent, Nelson said.