By Michael Copley
Staff Writer

The owner of a local pet care facility has joined with others nationwide to try to help with the clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico.

Gail Shaffer, the owner of Stay and Play in Powhatan, joined Matter of Trust, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, after hearing about the group’s effort to provide affected localities with oil absorbent booms made from human and animal hair.

Rather than throw away the hair clippings that pile up on the floor around her grooming tables, Shaffer has been saving the hair in trash bags; eventually she will mail it to a warehouse where volunteers will stuff the donation into nylon hosiery.

Last week, as the sausage-like tubes of hair piled up at assembly areas along the Gulf, BP announced that it would not be accepting the donations.

BP officials said the company will use its own synthetic booms, news reports indicate, because their buoyancy makes them more effective
Matter of Trust disagrees with the assessment and has released videos that show a side-by-side comparison of their product and the synthetic booms.

Whether or not the hair booms are used in the official clean-up effort, Shaffer said she’s happy to continue to save the hair from her business – it’s something she can do that will hopefully make a difference, she said.

Matter of Trust has indicated the booms volunteers are assembling can be used by individual localities in the Gulf region that are, or will soon be, mired in oil.

And Shaffer, who shifted her work from the hotel industry to a slightly different clientele, doesn’t think she’s alone in wanting to help; she plans to print certificates for the pet owners whose animals’ hair goes to the Gulf.