Did you ever think the hair on your

Did you ever think the hair on your head could be used to protect the environment? A strange experiment done by a hair stylist gave environmentalists a new way of looking at hair.
     On March 24, 1989, there was a terrible oil spill off the coast of Alaska. An oil tanker called the Exxon Valdez hit a reef and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the water. At the time, this was one of the worst environmental disasters in history. 
     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.
     In 2010, an oil-drilling facility called Deepwater Horizon spilled oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The Deepwater Horizon spill was even bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill. Phil McCrory's idea was used to help clean up the spill. Hair salons from all over the United States donated hair to organizations that used it to clean up the beaches of the Gulf.
     This incredible discovery came from one man's unusual experiment with hair. Sometimes, the craziest ideas are the best ones!