Now various beauty salons in Lima, the neighboring port of Calleo and other locations they cut hair for free to people willing to donate itdespite the fact that the Ministry of the Environment criticized this crusade.
The Agency for Environmental Assessment and Enforcement (OEFA), which depends on this Ministry, stated that the use of hair is an ineffective tool. and warned that, on the contrary, it could generate more waste in the sea. However, his warning did nothing to stop the harvest.
“I have a small braid that belongs to my sister who died of leukemia two years ago,” Rosa Becerra told AFP as she handed over her donation in Puente Piedra, a populous district in northern Lima.
“I had had the opportunity to take her to donate to make wigs for an organization that supports people with cancer, but by mistake I did not take it,” added the 38-year-old woman.
Berenice Lazarte, who runs a hair salon in Puente Piedra, explained that “hair helps a lot to recover the sea (…), so we said ‘we have a beauty salon, why don’t we take the initiative to help by providing free haircuts for people who want to donate their hair’.
“My little daughter likes animals and she sees that the animals in the sea are suffering and she has brought her puppy [Ody]”, said Betina Inga, 38, at the elevated metro station in San Juan de Lurigancho, in the north of Lima.
According to media, the use of hair to absorb oil in the sea was proposed in 1989 by an Alabama hairdresser after the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska and has been used in countries of the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean.