Human hair is ideal for soaking up oil spills. In fact, a ball of hair will hold about seventeen times its weight in oil. Lots of people shave their pubic areas and hair has been cut from heads for millennia.
Put the two together... large netting booms filled with the sweepings from barbers, hairdressers and brazilians; ready to be deployed next time BP goes hunting oil.-- infidel, May 28 2011 Human Hair Used to Clean Up Oil Spills http://earthfirst.c...lean-up-oil-spills/mats of human hair actually make the ideal material for cleaning up oil spills. Ecological charity ‘Matter of Trust’ has thousands of pounds of it delivered by the tractor trailer load, so they can create the mats. That much hair might be a disgusting sight, but it’s making a huge difference at oil spill locations around the world. [baconbrain, May 29 2011] http://scholarworks...%22feather+waste%22 In support of [xenzag]'s generalization of this idea. [mouseposture, May 29 2011] It is also great for making pin cushions, as the pins do not go rusty! So, I'm going to bun this for the recycling purpose!-- xandram, May 28 2011 //a ball of hair will hold about seventeen times its weight in oil// Baked: Italians.-- spidermother, May 28 2011 \\Baked Italians.\\ Ewww.-- mouseposture, May 28 2011 Old feather pillows would soak up even more oil. That would be my idea for the next inevitable spill (never thought it worth posting as a separate idea)
Pillows would of course have Sarah Palin's moronic head printed on them. ("is Africa a country?; polar bears will turn brown when the ice melts" - need I go on?) Why her? - because of the sheer joy of seeing vast oil, and muck soaked multiples of her head going through an industrial mangle in long lines, to extract the crude-oil, prior to returning them to active use.-- xenzag, May 28 2011 //Old feather pillows// Inefficient. Why go to the trouble of killing the birds, removing their feathers, stitching the feathers into pillows, and then dumping the pillows in the ocean? There's an obvious shortcut here ....-- mouseposture, May 28 2011 [mouse], are you perhaps talking about breeding (notice I did NOT say a thing about genetic modification!) birds for the express purpose of soaking up spilled oil? Hmmmm...
At the location of oil spill: "Look! Up in the sky! What's that dark cloud approaching?"
"Why, it's a flock of Absorb-O-Birds (patent pending)! They're winging their way to rescue us from this oily mess! Thank you, modern science."
Coming soon to a halfbakery category near you (but I can't be held responsible) Oil-spill Soaking Birds.-- Canuck, May 28 2011 You'd have to squeeze all of the shit out of Palin's head before it would absorb anything. I base this assumption on the apparent fact her brain hasn't absorbed anything new since the second grade.-- infidel, May 28 2011 Um. I Googled the first sentence, and got this as my first result: Human Hair Used to Clean Up Oil Spills.
So what's the idea? This is baked, but the first sentence sounds like that is known. So is this a "let's all"?-- baconbrain, May 29 2011 Shave For The Pelicans... just try not to cut your scrotum.-- infidel, May 29 2011 // Why go to the trouble of killing the birds, removing their feathers....// There are millions of chickens slaughtered for their meat every day. The feathers are a by-product.-- xenzag, May 29 2011 True, true. 3 billion pounds per year in the USA alone. Not only that, but <link>-- mouseposture, May 29 2011 random, halfbakery