Salon owner saves clippings to sop up oil

Augusta — Salon Bleu owner Melissa Wildrick loves seeing the piles of hair that collect on her floor each day. Yes, it means business is good, but Wildrick also looks at the waste in an eco-friendly way. Instead of sweeping the clippings into the trash, Wildrick and her stylists collect the strands, put them in plastic bags and ship them to a California company that manufactures them into mats used to soak up oil at spill sites. Melissa Wildrick who owns Salon Bleu, said she heard about the idea on YouTube. “I’ve always thought there could be some use for the hair clippings,” she said. “It sounded very interesting and a good way to help the environment.” She donates to the San Francisco-based environmental group Matter of Trust, which began collecting hair in 2000 and receives dozens of boxes every week. They work with textile companies to make the mats. The group also stuffs hair into nylon stockings that are turned into booms to contain the more major spills “Human hair is very absorbent. One quart of oil can be soaked up by one pound of hair,” Wildrick said. “There are nearly 370,000 hair salons in the United States and each collects about a pound a day,” Wildrick explained. “That’s a huge potential for this cause.” Widrick said she’s gotten good reactions from people in her shop. “The response that we’ve had from our staff is really exciting and, our clients feel good knowing they are contributing too.”