You may have felt helpless when an oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, starting a daily stream of 200,000 gallons of oil and gas into the gulf, but salon owner Bridget Brown-Perry knew what to do.

Her business, 109 Hairdacious Salon on Grove Street, Peterborough, is a member of Matter of Trust, an ecological charity that collects hair, fur and wool to help absorb oil in such disasters.

On May 1, Brown-Perry packed up 5 pounds and 2 ounces of hair clippings she collected at her salon, and sent the package to Matter of Trust.

“It has to be clean, shampooed hair,” she said. “They send the hair to oil spills.”

Brown-Perry said she joined Matter of Trust more than a year ago after her Essential Salon Products sales representative introduced her to it.

Along with hair, Matter of Trust also asks for the donation of used nylons, which are stuffed with hair. The nylons are then tied together and used to encircle and contain oil spills to keep the oil from spreading. The nylons and hair are made into hair booms.

“It’s almost like a sand bag, it absorbs the oil,” she said of the hair booms.

The nonprofit also weaves hair into mats that can be used to soak up oil on beaches. The hair mats can also be used under a car during an oil change, she said. “It’s good for the eco-system. ... Every little bit helps.”

After the hair is used to absorb oil spills, it is then recycled through a thermophiloic compost green waste process, then reduced by worms. The end result is a rich fertilizer made from worm castings, she said.

“This is something that China has been doing for 3,000 years and we’re just catching onto it,” Perry-Brown said.

Matter of Trust asks salons to donate clippings only, long hair should be donated to www.wigsforkids.org or www.locksoflove.org, she said. “Because it can be used for other charitable purposes.”

Hair salons are not the only members of Matter of Trust, Perry Brown said, adding that pet groomers and farmers also join to donate fur, wool and fleece.

Sharon alpaca farmers Liz and John MacEachran donated four bags of fleece to the cause while at sheep and wool festival on May 8.

“I think it sort of hit everybody at the same time,” Liz MacEachran said. “We were all seeing it in the newspapers and TV, the beauty salons were collecting hair. ... It just occurred to us ‘this is happening during shearing season.’”

Well, wool could serve the same purpose, she said, and there is always a certain amount of fleece left over.

“We really want to use the best fiber for our product and there’s always some stuff that isn’t quite as useable. ... The fiber way down on the legs is often dirty or short, so it doesn’t get used.”

This unused fiber often finds its way into bird nests on their farm, MacEachran said. “With our leftover fiber, like that, we often put it in our compost pile, but a lot of it is taken away by birds.”

MacEachran said she had never thought of it before, but now plans to donate her leftover fiber again next shearing season. “You like to see a good use for everything you produce.”

According to the Matter of Trust website, www.matteroftrust.org, alpaca farmers across the country have donated about 10,000 pounds of fleece.

The hair, fur and wool donations, though, are not yet being used in the clean up. According to a May 14 Matter of Trust press release, the hair has been offered to the responsible party, BP, but not yet accepted. “BP is saying officially ‘At this time, BP is not soliciting or accepting donations.’ And we can understand why they would say that. BP hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about the properties of hair, fur, wool and fleece. And they’re a little busy right now.”

“At this time, we are simply providing volunteers the opportunity to make hair boom and stockpile them all along the Gulf Coast, in case BP needs them. We’re calling it Plan H (H is for Hair),” Matter of Trust wrote in the press release.

According to an Associated Press article on Monday, BP has reported success containing some of the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico through a mile long tube that is siphoning oil and gas from a leaking pipe on the sea floor. According to the article, however, Kent Wells, BP’s senior executive vice president, said that the tube is not capturing all of the leaking oil and is not a permanent solution.

A permanent fix, involving shooting thousands of barrels of mud into the leaking well, then capping it with concrete, could be attempted within the next week to 10 days, Wells told the Associated Press.