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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: New York City (West End Ave.)
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Human Hair and Compost Piles

06/22/2009 11:04 AM

I've recently read about "mats" that were being made by matting human hair, collected from barber shops and women's salons. These were being used dealing with oil spills, both on water and on beaches. It seems human hair will have 5 times its weight in oil cling (adsorb) to it though can also be washed and reused many times. Also, hair with oil can be safely put in compost piles, and will even be food for worms as part of the brak down process. Is this an old idea or something new and just being tried here ? Other than making wigs, has any other use been found for cut human hair ? I assume its biodegradable but is it that process fast and complete ? Has any one any experience of oil waste in a compost pile ? What are those facts ?

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#1

Re: Use of human hair other than wigs.

06/22/2009 2:21 PM

What do I know - since you don't seem to be getting answers.

Human hair is I believe nearly all protein, and breaks down very slowly. Hair has at times over history been woven and spun and stuffed into garments, bedding, pillows, fabrics.

Composting is a bacterial action - natural oils (grease, waste oil, etc) are very bad in *most* typical above ground aerobic composts.

I would imagine petroleum is worse.

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#2

Re: Use of human hair other than wigs.

06/22/2009 3:51 PM

The short answer is human hair can be broken down into something called amino acid L-Cysteine, which is used as a food additive and soy sauce. It doesn't appear to be too wide spread (so no need to panic).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysteine

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/4292/

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/1046/

Also google "hair soy" and "amino acid L-Cysteine human hair"

So in summary you can eat it.

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#3
In reply to #2

Re: Use of human hair other than wigs.

06/22/2009 4:00 PM

Aw - thanks so much for that Jack!

No more Chinese food

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#5
In reply to #2

Re: Use of human hair other than wigs.

06/22/2009 10:38 PM

"Also google "hair soy" and "amino acid L-Cysteine human hair"

So in summary you can eat it."

You could ; it just wouldn't taste good . Also, you may have a little problem trying to digest it , if hairballs in cats are any indication .

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#6
In reply to #5

Re: Use of human hair other than wigs.

06/22/2009 10:47 PM

The hair is converted into amino acid L-Cysteine, then added to some foods, so OBVIOUSLY you wouldn't be eating a plate full of hair, that's what quality control is for!

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#4

Re: Human Hair and Compost Piles

06/22/2009 6:48 PM

oilspill to compost pile??? no. uh-uh. not.

Cysteine rich peptides do have a role in bioremediation or cleanups of toxic sites: the cysteine gives them a high affinity for heavy metals. Bioremediation takes a long time, it's not your backyard compost to grow tomatoes in next year. Toxic stuff that doesn't break down over many cycles ( or ever, as in metals) has to be collected and removed.

Cysteine rich peptides are also used to make tetracysteine tags for fluorescent imaging of cells. Something to do with your human-hair-cysteine instead of soy sauce

Then again, you could always make rope instead.. hair rope making tools are kinda cool...

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