Phil McCrory was a hair stylist in Hunstville, Alabama. As McCrory watched news stories about the oil spill, he noticed how difficult it was for the workers to clean the oil off of animals’ fur. The animals’ fur held the oil. McCrory thought, “If animal fur can trap and hold spilled oil, how about human hair?”
Phil decided to do an experiment. He brought home five pounds of hair from his salon. He stuffed the hair inside an old pair of his wife's nylon stockings and tied the edges tightly. Then he filled a plastic pool with water and poured in several gallons of motor oil. He dropped the package of hair into the oily water. Within in a few minutes, the water was clear. The hair soaked up the oil!
Phil brought his idea to NASA (The National Aeronautical and Space Administration), and they did a bigger experiment to test Phil's theory. Their results confirmed that hair has a special property that traps oil very well. This discovery led to the development of a product called the OttiMat. The OttiMat is a mat made from recycled human hair, and it is used to clean up oil spills. It has become a very successful product.