The purpose of my experiment is to determine whether human hair or pet hair absorbs oil better. To find out, the following questions were studied: how to clean up an oil spill? Why does hair absorb oil? How is hair used? Does type/color matter? How effective is it? I will have 10 runs, using the same amount of hair and oil each time, the oil will also be mixed with water to replicate a more accurate oil spill environment. How to clean up an oil spill? There are many different ways to clean up an oil spill, as no two oil spills are the same, they vary in location, types of oil, and other conditions involved. Depending on the spill, the best method is to leave the oil alone and allow it to decompose naturally. (University of Delaware, 2004) But, although by far the cheapest method, it cannot be used in the event of large oil spills, such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico. Another way is to use dispersants to break up the oil, this will accelerate the natural biodegradation of the oil (University of Delaware, 2004), and dispersants are used by reducing surface tension to prevent oil and water from mixing. is to introduce new biological agents into the spill to accelerate biodegradation, very similar to dispersants, but they act faster than dispersants and are more environmentally friendly. (NOAA, 2012). Most of the oil's components will wash ashore, but they can easily be broken down by microorganisms and bacteria. But the effectiveness of this technique will always depend on factors such as whether there is sand or pebbles on the ground, due to the difference in organisms. But one of the most effective and cheapest solutions to cleaning up oil spills is to use a simple...... middle of paper ......tems supervisor for Marshall Contractor BAMSI, Inc., has filled a 55 gallon oil drum with 40 gallons of water and 15 gallons of oil. “The mixture was filtered through nylon bags filled with hair,” Glover explained. “When the water was tested after a single pass through McCrory’s innovative filter, only 17 parts of oil per million parts of water remained.” McCrory estimates that 25,000 pounds of hair in nylon collection bags could be enough to adsorb 170,000 gallons of spilled oil. Other tests show that a gallon of oil can be adsorbed in less than two minutes using the McCrory method. McCrory's method also has potential savings. Oil cleanup now costs about $10 to recover a gallon of oil. The McCrory system can cost as little as $2 per gallon and has the added benefit of being able to use the recovered oil as fuel. (Marshall Flight Center, 2008)