Convicted murderers, rapists and hardened criminals from the maximum security section of New Bilibid Prison, are having their heads shaved as part of a national drive to collect human hair to help sponge up more than 50,000 gallons of fuel leaked off the central coast of the Philippines.
”The prisoners had their hearts touched and they all sent me a message saying there were willing to give their hair as their own small contribution.”
The 15,000 inmates at a maximum security prison in southern Manila, including 1,000 on death row, began donating hair on Tuesday as health officials ordered the evacuation of residents of a fishing village on Guimaras due to health risks.
Prisoners don’t need their hair anyway, right? An interesting resolution to a natural problem.
“We’re collecting plenty of hair to send to Guimaras to solve the oil spill problem,” Vergilio Santos, 42, who is serving a murder sentence at New Bilibid Prison, told Reuters television after his head was shaved by a barber.
“This is a contribution even though it’s a small part,” said Nigel Richard Gatward, a 37-year-old British national convicted of drug smuggling.
The Coast Guard plans to put chicken feathers and human hair in sacks tied to bamboo poles as barriers along the coastlines of affected villages on Guimaras and in nearby Iloilo province.
Residents have been using rice straw in sacks to contain the oil slick, which has affected 46 villages on Guimaras and in Iloilo, as well as a marine reserve.
So remember, when you have a little oil spill in the garage next time, why not just grab that ‘bag of hair’ you keep under your bathroom vanity and sop it up. Perhaps the local butcher can provide you with some feathers, however don’t anticipate that there is a single feather in your local grocer’s vicinity – 99% of all chicken is delivered processed. In Chinatown NYC, perhaps, but not in most of the more developed areas of the United States. ed.
Source: Reuters.com
Photo Credit: Photo Montago Created by Lonny Paul from Reuters Video Screenshots
