Brazilian firm uses hair to help clean up oil spills and pollution

These sausage-shaped objects are an innovative technology.

They are filters filled with human hair and placed strategically across the Bom Jesus inlet in Guanabara Bay.

An orange barrier on the water already stops trash from entering the mangroves.

These hair filters block oil as well.

"The idea is the oil that flows here be absorbed by that hair barrier so they are attached to the orange rubbish barrier, which floats, and we use it as support for the Fiotrar barrier," says Ana Beatriz Gonçalves, an environmental engineer who oversees the weekly maintenance of the new barriers.

The Brazilian non governmental organization Fiotrar is leading the project to get the filters in place.

At a lab in Rio's Federal University, Mariana Robrahn explains how it works.

"So we use these hairs to fill all these sausages. We use hairs of different formats of different kinds of people, and we can make these filters, which is the application you just saw placed in Guanabara Bay, preventively to filter out oil, biodiesel, and other substances that pollute the water" says Robrahn.

It's a protective measure which is very much needed.

"It (pollution) arrives over many days, and our barrier can stay up to four months in the sea, containing the pollution that arrives from the boats or illegal dumping or other diverse kinds of pollution," explains Caroline Carvalho, a chemist.

At a hair salon in Rio, clients have their styles refreshed.

But the leftover clippings will not be wasted.

This is one of ten salons which supplies hair to the project.

Participating salons must recover the hair before it is mixed with other residue from the floor.

Even pet hair can be used for filtering and absorbing oil.

Brazil, with its many hair salons, has a great potential for the use of this material.

Robrahn performs a simple experiment to demonstrate the absorbing effect of hair.

"This is oil, I will pour it on the water" she says.

"You can observe that all the oil in this jug will be held in the hair and the water will exit without oil," she adds.

The water emerges oil-free.

"Each gram of hair has the potential to absorb five grams of oil, and that is precisely the work of the barrier," says Robrahn.

Guanabara Bay is a gigantic body of water adjacent to the city of Rio.

Heavy shipping traffic is common here.

The bay has long suffered from all kinds of pollution.

Ships enter and leave the bay constantly.

For the traditional fishing communities, oil and garbage is a problem.

Sergio Carvalho is one of many fishermen who have got involved in removing garbage and now oil from the bay.

"When we sail for fishing with nets, we find many oil spillages that interfere with our fishing. The oil stays on the surface but impacts what is up to one and a half meters below. The fish disappeared," says Carvalho.

His fishing community is located on the same island as Rio's Federal University campus: Fundão Island.

The edges of the island are lined with mangrove trees.

Here a team from the zoology department is monitoring the health of the mangrove.

The research team captures crabs to check their health and population numbers. .

Crabs can die due to the effects of pollution.

Rio has 20 species of crabs. Only seven of them occur in these polluted mangroves.

"Generally oil can have the effect of waterproofing the gills, which can suffocate and kill the animal, and it can have other physiological effects on the animal's body and organs in general" says zoologist Eduardo Viana de Almeida, while holding a guaiamun, one of the largest crabs in the area.

The crab is released but will be monitored again.

Guanabara Bay has already enjoyed some improvements from the expansion of sewage collection networks.

It is hoped the hair oil barriers will contribute to the improvement of ecosystem health, and the results will be continuously measured in coming years.