What do human hair, coconut husks (bunot ng niyog), rice straws (dayami), and plastic bottles have in common?
These are the unlikely yet effective materials that are being used to help address the massive oil spill from the recent sinking of the Motor Tanker Terra Nova off the coast of Limay, Bataan.
Bataan local government units (LGUs), volunteers across neighboring provinces in Central Luzon, and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) alike are soliciting at least one of the aforementioned materials in various donation drives as makeshift oil spill booms.
Salons and barbershops are especially called upon to donate discarded hair, as farmers and local communities are encouraged to donate coconut husks and rice straws.
Meanwhile, anyone can provide plastic bottles, specifically 1 or 2-liter bottles with caps to their respective donation drives.
Aside from LGUs in Bataan, volunteers based in Pampanga and Bulacan are already calling for the said materials, especially hair, through social media.
Efforts are also being organized in Zambales to initiate a donation drive there.
Even before the Bataan oil spill, these alternatives were already being solicited and used to help mitigate and clean previous oil spills.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, local rice straw was used as an alternative sorbent to assist manual recovery in the aftermath of the oil spill linked to Typhoon Yolanda.
The Bulacan State University-Environmental Science Society also posted that studies have proven how hair is an “adsorbent” that can adsorb and trap oil when they stick together.
