At Matter of Trust’s eco-industrial hub — a bright, airy space that doubles as an education center and office in downtown San Francisco — staff and volunteers spend their days patiently feeding animal fur and human hair into noisy felting machines.

First, they construct a scrim — a gauzy, light textile — from the longer hairs, which have to be at least three inches in length. Then they pass it through the machine again, adding a little more hair as they go. They do this again and again, sprinkling more strands in each time, until the needles have felted it into a sturdy length of fabric.

The hair comes from hair salons and pet groomers from all over the country who have discovered the organization through its press coverage or word-of-mouth from environmentally conscious clients.

Individuals are welcome to donate their hair too, and packets of ponytails arrive in the mail every day.

Inside Matter of Trust’s San Francisco hub, there is also a hair salon called Pitch that donates its snipped locks to the organization. Their floor sweepings have just a few feet to travel before they’re fed into the felting machines in the back of the space.

Though ocean oil spills usually get the most attention from the media, Matter of Trust is currently focusing on the rather less buzzy issue of storm drains. Fifty percent of oil spills that contaminate waterways in the U.S. come from used motor oil that gets washed into storm drains.

The hair mats act as natural filters, soaking up the oil and trapping any additional debris — like cigarette butts or twigs — in the process. Two cities in Texas, Garland and North Richland Hills, have installed hair mats in their storm drains, and now even the military is joining in.

Matter of Trust is working with scientists and engineers from the Air Force Civil Engineering Center at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida to explore using human hair and animal fur to soak up contaminants in wastewater. As with the University of Technology Sydney research, this second peer-reviewed paper will add scientific heft to the program. As Gautier says, “It’s helpful when trying to get cities and corporations to use the hair mats.”

But while Matter of Trust is promoting the widespread adoption of hair mats, it has no intention of cornering the market. Rather, the goal is to stimulate the eco economy. The San Francisco hub is a model factory, and the charity is keen to help other cities set up factories of their own.

“We are spending the time and money to gather the information so that it is easy for groups to set up and run small green businesses,” Gautier says. “Our goal is to create a waste-fiber recycling system.”

Until then, the next time you can’t face getting up early to wash your hair, remember to look on the bright side. When you eventually get those greasy locks lopped off, they don’t have to go into landfill. They might, just might, save a puffin one day.

(This article was originally published on Sept. 20, 2018)