How are oil spills cleaned up and what are some methods used?
There are three methods available for cleaning up oil spills. • The oil can be burned. This works well even if the oil is floating on water, but isn’t very good for any life under the oil. However, relatively small amounts may be burned to prevent spills, as happened with the freighter which recently ran aground off the west coast of the United States; the fuel oil on board was burned to keep it from spilling. • The oil can be skimmed. Again, oil floats on water, so it can be skimmed off in the same way that grease can be skimmed from a stew. There are several methods available for this, all of them similar to the skimmers used in kitchens. The oil is confined during skimming by a floating “boom,” which goes down far enough to keep the oil from seeping out from underneath it. • The oil can be broken up or washed (converted into an emulsion) by the use of detergents. This is exactly similar to washing clothes or dishes. Fats and oils which don’t dissolve in water are treated with a surf
