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GREENSBORO — Hair stylists know a thing or two about making the best out of a disaster. And in Greensboro, that singular focus is aimed at the growing 120-mile oil slick in the Gulf Coast.

“It makes so much sense because we obviously know that hair retains oil,” said Parker Washburn, owner of Leon’s Beauty School.

The school and the eight Leon’s salons are collecting hair donations to help soak up the drifting oil.

The drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which oil giant BP was leasing, exploded 50 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20 and blew open the well. It sank two days later. Eleven workers on board were killed.

An estimated 200,000 gallons a day have been spewing ever since in the nation’s biggest oil spill since the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989.

Hair stuffed in hosiery can create sponge-like booms, many of which already have been placed along beaches and marshes near the Gulf Coast. Thousands of pounds of hair have come into the area via UPS and FedEx from around the world, reports the charitable Matter of Trust (www.matteroftrust.org), which links nonprofits to sustainability problem solving.

Some of the nylon is coming from Hanesbrands in Winston-Salem.

Much more of the hair is needed.

“If every beauty salon in this country donated hair, we could at least clean up miles of beach front or protect miles of beach front,” Washburn said.

“People always say, 'What can we do?’ How easy is it to collect the hair on the floor?”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com