Having worked for 20 years as a hairdresser, Ronald Thompson decided to put down his scissors and seek artistic fulfilment by returning to study.

While on a placement on the set of the Batman Begins movie in 2005 – an integral part of his degree in environmental design at London South Bank University (LSBU) – inspiration struck.

“During my course I decided that I wanted to take waste and turn it into a commodity. I had visited landfill sites and toyed with ideas using plastic bottles, but when I worked on the Batman movie it clicked – I could replace fibreglass with human hair.”

A year later and with a prototype chair made from resin and hair as his final-year project (he later sold it for £8,000), Thompson earned a first-class honours degree and the LSBU’s Enterprise Associate Scholarship Commercialisation Award, a masters course with a bursary and funding for the development of his idea.

The environmental advantages of using human hair over energy-laden fibreglass were obvious, but as Thompson investigated the properties of his new material, additional benefits became apparent. The hair-based product is 20 per cent stronger, weighs one fifth of the equivalent amount of glass, crumples rather than shears on impact and the resultant exposed edges do not present a cutting hazard like those of fibreglass.

Having produced a material with such a diverse range of applications, generating interest from industries that consume fibreglass was not a problem.

Due to complete his masters later this year, Thompson launched his company, Pilius X Design (from the Latin for hair), has sourced the required human hair at zero cost through a deal with y-waste, a business waste exchange organisation, and has struck a deal with a retail fittings company even before production begins in earnest next year.

With a staff of five and a fully biodegradable rapeseed resin to replace the present polyester one in development, Thompson is on the verge of a rapid take-off.

piliusxdesign.co.uk

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