marzipanthecat
May 10th, 2010, 10:00 AM
Human hair (and animal fur) is being used to soak up the oil slick. A nice use of a waste product, I thought. But I assume it is because the regular soak-up devices are either running out, or they are being used less because the artificial fibre ones are rather expensive (we used to use them to soak up human blood where I used to work - don't worry, it was a testing lab, nothing bizarre!).
The artificial fibre ones soak up a massive amount of fluids and hold them (it was something like 20 or 30 times their own weight, I can't remember exactly how much), human hair apparently holds about 6 times its own weight in oil.
Article about this from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8672124.stm
Now I'm waiting for some "wit" to come up to me in the street and ask when I'm sending my own hair out there...
The artificial fibre ones soak up a massive amount of fluids and hold them (it was something like 20 or 30 times their own weight, I can't remember exactly how much), human hair apparently holds about 6 times its own weight in oil.
Article about this from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8672124.stm
Now I'm waiting for some "wit" to come up to me in the street and ask when I'm sending my own hair out there...