Hairdressers and their customers can help clean seas, lakes and rivers with their hair cut off. Simple - but with great effect!
Hair has the special property of absorbing a lot of fat and not losing this function even after cutting. Therefore, they are ideal to be used as a natural cleaning agent against pollution such as oil, petrol and sunscreen residues in bodies of water such as seas, rivers and lakes.
Up to now, tons of hair leftovers from approx. 83,000 hairdressing salons in Germany are disposed of in the residual waste every year, since only a few hairs are suitable for wigs. However, the question of whether the hair that was cut off could still be used for something was always present.
Together we looked for a way to do something good with the hair we cut off and discovered the "hair filter". The French association “Coiffeure Justes” (fair hairdressers) from the south of France, which fills the hair in old nylon stockings, ties them into rolls and then uses them as a filter in polluted waters, serves as a role model for us. The suction function of the hair filter pulls the oil out of the water, is then cleaned and can be reused up to eight times. One kilogram of hair can filter up to eight kilograms of oil from the water. www.coiffeur-justes.com
These hair filters are used worldwide. In lakes and bodies of water, in front of industrial areas and on coasts to filter oils, fuel residues and suntan lotion out of the water. In the summer of 2019, the hair filters were also used off Mauritius when a freighter ran aground there and lost several thousand tons of oil.
A good, first idea is now becoming a company in the form of a UG based in Bückeburg, which will ensure natural sustainability and logistics. It is planned to work together with German companies to establish this logistics in Germany and the neighboring countries and to clean our seas, rivers and lakes naturally and sustainably with cut hair residues. The hair filters can then also be used wherever petrol or engine oil has leaked, where motor boats anchor and refuel, on bathing beaches and where there have been accidents in the water that caused pollution.
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What do we actually do with the hair?
