Hooters Really Cares about the BP Disaster. Really.

The Hooters Girls want to help absorb oil in the Gulf.

Seriously.

Hooters, the restaurant chain known for its scantily-clad and well-endowed wait staff, hopes to collect 100,000 pairs of torn pantyhose from the Hooter Girls through ‘Project Pantyhose’. 

The pantyhose will then be used to make 15 miles of booms to help absorb the oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP disaster.

Yes, it sounds like a joke, but it’s not. All the Hooter Girls are required to wear pantyhose as part of their uniforms, so there are a lot of run nylons to be collected. Hooters anticipates that their booms, made with the used pantyhose by non-profits Indigo Oceanic and Matter of Trust, can absorb up to 1 million gallons of oil.

All 380 domestic Hooters restaurants are participating over the next 4 weeks.

"Who would have thought our Hooters Girls' pantyhose would have a use other than making the girls' legs look great," stated Mike McNeil, Vice President of Marketing, Hooters of America. "The Hooters Girls friendly service has just become environmental friendly as well."

It remains unclear, however, whether the booms will even be usable. They all must go through quality control tests before they can be deployed.

Right now, there are reports of 19 warehouses with booms that have not passed those tests.

While 1 million gallons sounds like a lot of oil absorption, with conservative estimates saying that 66 million gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf - and other estimates saying as much as 100 million gallons - it really is a very small amount. And small is definitely not in line with the Hooters brand.