Anyone who can turn trimmed hair and discarded hosiery into an ecologically beneficial cottage industry must be onto something. That’s just one of many amazing alchemical efforts brought forth by Matter of Trust, an “ecological public charity” whose mission is to “Link ideas, spark action and materialize sustainable systems. This often involves connecting, and in some cases jump-starting, people and ideas to create new systems that run on “surplus” – stuff nobody else wants. There’s also a strong eco-educational component to the mission.

Our reason for writing about Matter of Trust (MofT) in Inner Tapestry’s “Movement” issue is simple: MofT is all about taking action to put the “stuck energy” of unprocessed waste into motion for the benefit of All Beings. And the more people who know about it, the more momentum it can build. All MofT’s programs are grassroots efforts that rely on peoples’ motivation to live harmoniously and sustainably. “Every little bit helps” could well be MofT’s motto; it’s certainly a guiding operating principle.

Now Hair This

A perfect example of the synergy behind this principle is MofT’s program to create and deploy oil spill hairmats. Thousands of salons, pet groomers and sheep shearers throughout the US and abroad mail MofT the hair clippings they sweep up off their floors. The fibers are woven into funky mats that are wonderfully efficient for cleaning up oil spills. (Hair is adsorbent so the oil clings to it, as opposed to being absorbed.) The waste hair can also be stuffed into long “booms” of recycled nylon stockings to surround and contain an oil spill.

Over 2,500 oil spills occur worldwide each year from ships, pipelines and illegal dumping. Most don’t make the nightly news, but they still have a major impact on the local environment where they occur. These hairmats – and some mat-wielding volunteers to do the mopping-up – can make a big difference in such scenarios. They’re also useful at car repair shops and other such places.

The mats are the invention of Alabama hairstylist Phil McCrory, who figured out that we need to shampoo our hair because, hey, it collects oil like magic. Manufacturing the mats has created a number of green collar jobs. Another beneficial property of the hairmats, their slow protein release during decomposition, has spawned the small eco-business SmartGrow (www.smartgrow.us), which sells hairmats to gardeners and nurseries as “an environmentally sustainable herbicide replacement.” The mats prevent weed growth and snail infestation, and reduce water evaporation by up to 50%, saving nursery operation many thousands of dollars annually.

Check out www.matteroftrust.org to learn more about MofT’s hairmat program. If you’re affiliated with a salon, barber shop, pet groomer, wig maker, sheep farm or other “hair-intensive” business you can join MofT’s donor database and begin mailing MofT your discarded hair. You can even order posters to let your customers know you’re supporting a worthy cause, and that their unwanted hair has value after all.

Oil’s Well That Ends Well

MofT volunteers and local surfers used hundreds of hairmats to clean up San Francisco Bay after a cargo ship hit the Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of Bunker C fuel in 2007. What happens to those hairmats after they’ve been deployed on an oiled beach or the garage bays at Jiffy Lube? Turns out they can be composted using worms and greenwaste. Thomas Azwell, an environmental science PhD student at the University of California at Berkeley, is currently using worms to digest and detoxify the organic material in the mats and turn it into rich fertilizer. MofT is the fiscal sponsor of Azwell’s hands-on study.

But MofT wasn’t putting all its waste in one basket. It also orchestrated a treatability study, along with mycologist Paul Stamets of Fungi.com, to test how well oyster mushrooms could devour oily hairmats and detoxify the waste to create landscape-grade compost. This technique didn’t work as well as the worms with the heavy spilled fuel, but may have other applications for detoxifying organic material.

But why stop at cleaning up oil – why not try making some, too? To that end, MofT is coordinating a “long-term project” to research the benefits and feasibility of collecting large, suffocating algal blooms from the surface of the ocean and using the lipids in the algae to create biodiesel fuel.

And if you’re hoping to make biodiesel, you might as well help popularize it as a fuel. MofT has funded a number of alternative fuels awareness and utilization projects:

• At its inception MofT sponsored Veggie Van.org, which raises awareness about how turning used vegetable oil from restaurants into biodiesel can reduce fossil fuel dependence. VeggieVan.org founder Josh Tickell, author of biodiesel bible From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank, drives his grease-powered van across the US, filling up at McDonalds and other eateries.
• MofT is also the official sponsor of Tickell’s documentary Fuel, based on his recent book Biodiesel America. Fuel won the Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Documentary Film Festival and is now widely available on DVD after a successful run of theater showings.
• MofT is involved in getting several fleets of San Francisco area municipal and school busses running on biodiesel blends.

What goes around comes around… and around, and around, as one MofT effort begets another.

Reuse Of Society’s Abundance

Turing organic waste into useful products utilizes what MofT calls “natural surplus.” The non-profit also works with “manmade surplus” – used or discarded furniture, equipment, clothing, appliances, building materials and supplies. The challenge is to match the donors with the people who need what they’re donating.

MofT’s first and largest grassroots program, Reuse of Society’s Abundance (ROSA), has addressed this problem since 1998. Since 1999 MofT’s Excess Access website and database has helped to automate the process of “Linking surplus with needs.” Now ROSA concentrates on developing a “critical mass” of donors and recipients to make the logistics work. When unusual items or large quantities of items are needed or donated ROSA helps coordinate successful matchups. ROSA also scouts out new opportunities for MofT to catalyze new grassroots programs and partnerships among eco-centric organizations.

Maybe your organization, or someone you know, would benefit from connecting with this program? To find out, visit Excess Access, LLC at www.excessaccess.com. This free database service automatically matches business and household item donations with the wish lists of nonprofits that can accept drop-offs or provide pickups. Thousands of dollars worth of secondhand goods are finding new homes daily, and staying out of landfills, thanks to this service.

Eco-education

MofT’s eco-education projects seem to be almost numberless. They start, morph and transition in response to the needs of the moment, whether it be oil spill remediation, disaster recovery, low-tech “green living” or environmental awareness.
Their most high-profile eco-education program is Earth From Above-USA, of which MofT is the fiscal sponsor. This stunning outdoor public art exhibit of large-scale aerial photography by world-renowned environmentalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand is intended to serve as a record for future generations. It presents awe-inspiring portraits of our planet and offers a new perspective on the need for sustainable living.

Since its Paris premiere in 2000, more than 130 million people in over 120 cities including Berlin, Beirut, Moscow, Tokyo, Sidney and Montreal have seen Earth From Above. Its US debut in New York City, originally scheduled for 2008, has been postponed until Spring 2010, when Earth From Above-USA will be open to the public day and night, free of charge, for eight weeks. This exhibit, the largest to date, will feature 150 images from around the world, along with a walkable world map, exhibit for the blind, and inspiration center. Financial assistance is required to make this happen. For more information visit www.earthfromaboveusa.com.

MofT also sponsors the Green Energy Millions (GEMs) campaign “to create the tipping point” towards sustainability. You participate by visiting MofT’s website and clicking the GEMs link on the home page. From there, you check boxes for the GEM commitments you want to keep to incorporate easy, green choices into your lifestyle, such as “I will drink tap water instead of buying bottled water.” You can also add your own commitments in addition to the ones on the list. Click on the associated link to see the impact of your choice. The goal is to get 100 million commitments – just for starters. It’s fun to make your commitments and see the new total reflected on the home page. Classrooms and other groups can make group commitments, too.

Who are these people?

MofT was conceived in 1998 by Lisa Craig Gautier and her husband, Patrice Olivier Gautier, and received 501(c)3 public charity status in 1999. An experienced business manager as well as the mother of three young daughters, Lisa is a strong advocate for working environments that offer flexible schedules, home offices and a close-knit, dedicated and hard-working team. Patrice is the Senior Director of the Apple iTunes Music Store and holds advanced degrees in both engineering and computer science – handy for keeping the Excess Access database up-and-running.

Says Lisa: “When my husband and I planned for our kids, we were delighted to be given the responsibility for bringing them into the world; and we were eager to join in taking responsibility for the world we are passing on to everybody’s kids. Happily, all of us here (at MofT) get to meet others daily who feel the same way.

“Nonprofits would seem perfectly suited for networking, but often they are so busy with their specific missions they don’t have the time and staff to do the necessary research, outreach and follow up. Great ideas remain only ideas unless they are presented to the right people at the right time. And, to really take off, they need to get matched with complimentary great ideas. That’s where we thought we could come in, so we started first by matching nonprofit needs with in-kind donations through our ROSA program and its online component, Excess Access.

“The ROSA/Excess Access system introduced us to thousands of grassroots organizations, recyclers, green businesses, and other exciting new projects. Naturally, the linking of ideas began to flow as easily as the linking of donations.

“Our work requires constant research, maintenance, encouragement and knowledge from many different sources. We are comprised of our Board, contractors and volunteers. Our dedicated follow-up teams consist of loyal work-from-home moms, wise senior-citizen advisors and dynamic student interns.

“MofT is continually evolving and we welcome new ideas and contributions. We hold a very optimistic view of the future, thanks to all of the ecological progress that we see. We’re very fond of this lovely planet and respectfully consider Her to be Matter Of Trust.”

Scott Cronenweth is a freelance writer, shamanic/alternative healer and naturalist based in South Portland, Maine. To learn about Scott’s nature-based healing practice please visit www.gotbuddhanature.com. For information about his birdwatching and nature tours visit www.naturalpathwalks.com.