With climate anxiety reaching a new high for some people, companies are looking for more ways to help protect the environment while we still can. A project in Belgium is working on recycling human hair to reduce pollution.
Coiffeurs across Belgium are sweeping up and bagging hair clipped from their customers and then handing it over to the Hair Recycle project. They then feed locks and tresses into a machine that turns them into matted squares. These can be used to absorb oil and other hydrocarbons polluting the environment or alternatively be made into bio-composite bags.
Hair has powerful properties, which is why it’s so beneficial to find a way to use its potential for good. One strand of hair can support up to 10 million times its own weight. It can also absorb fat and hydrocarbons, is water-soluble and highly elastic due to its keratin fibres.
Project Co-founder Patrick Janssen explained that 2.2 pounds of hair can absorb up to two gallons of oil and hydrocarbons. The mats created from human hair would be placed in drains to soak up pollution in water before it reaches a river.
“Our products are all the more ethical as they are manufactured locally… they are not imported from the other side of the planet,” Janssen said. “They are made here to deal with local problems.”