Yes, you read that correctly.  We have run across a new kind of filter, folks.  This one doesn’t quite match up to the “human” variety, but it comes close…

Thousands of hair salons nationwide have donated hair clippings to Matter of Trust – an environmental organization that is involved in a project that collects hair and nylon stockings to make oil booms and mats.

Each strand of hair has scales on it that attract and collect oil, which explains why most of us shampoo our hair daily.  However, this basic fact has not just been applied by shampoo companies.  The oil booms and mats made from salon hair clippings is now effectively being used to clean up the damage left by the recent Gulf spill.  Hair is stuffed into nylon stockings that are dragged along the coast, sopping up oil which sticks to the scales, while the water filters out.

Oil spills can do great damage to marine life, including the sea monkeys, oysters and other creatures that act as natural water filters.  Such an emergency requires a better remedy than bottled water.  Here, we have yet another example of how water filtration is important to our lives as well as to the health of our environment.