Best Friends Helps Fight the Oil Spills in the Gulf and Beyond

Dog grooming and cleaning up an oil spill may seem totally unrelated, but Best Friends has found a way to recycle hair and fur clippings from our grooming business to help in the fight to save the Gulf.

Best Friends 40 grooming salons nationwide are collecting those hair and fur clippings and donating them to "Hair for Oil Spills" - a program that turns them into containment booms and clean up mats.

Because hair is hydrophobic, it is very effective at absorbing oil. Volunteers for the non-profit organization Matter of Trust (www.matteroftrust.org) stuff the donated hair and fur into recycled nylons and mesh to create sausage-like devices that help contain and soak up spilled oil. This video explains how the program works.

According to Matter of Trust, last year there were more than 2,600 oil spills around the world. While few are as large as the April spill off Louisiana, most have an impact on the environment, affecting local wildlife.

Want to support this campaign to save the Gulf and help clean-up future oil spills? Call your local Best Friends center to schedule a grooming appointment. Your pet's hair could make a difference for the endangered wildlife and citizens in the path of an oil spill.

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