Oil spill clean up using down and feathers

Its a simple theory; if birds get covered in oil when an oil spill occurs, why not use bird feathers and down to actually clean up the oil spill on the open seas? (In this simple demonstration I am using feathers and down from my duvet, sea salt, and olive oil and tap water. Ya, its pretty simplified, I realize that.) This suggested clean up technique has been verified hundreds of thousands of times in the past few years using live birds. If this process is reversed and feathers/down are introduced to a large oil slick and the feathers are agitated (waves will accomplish this), the feathers naturally gather the oil and bind together forming clumps. Because the feathers have tiny filaments each strand gets coated, their capacity for collecting oil is far greater than a boom. Feathers are very light to transport and can be sourced from the poultry industry and dropped by helicopter or boat. Once the feathers form into clumps the booms can collect these formed clumps and they can be removed from the body of water. I am not a scientist but I believe in biomimicry as a great and simple model for problem solving.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Oil
• spill
• clean
• up
• for
• the
• Gulf
• of
• Mexico

[AnnaMiekaMonster]

In 2003, Louisiana produced over 1 billion pounds of poultry. Surely the #1 industry in this state would be interested in supporting a relief effort by donating some feathers to the clean up. They have more than 420 growers in 12 parishes just in the one state.

[Animehem]

hmmmm.... now how do we clean up the feathers the next experiment

[sweetsmile493]

so u assume using feathers from chickens? because i know you can't use the birds that are already covered in that awful oil slick.

[kinakastner]

Simple, natural and ingenious !! Why hasn't anyone thought of this sooner ?!!

Now to spread the word and get some action going, that's the hard part....

[WorldMechanic]

I forwarded you idea and video to BP yesterday did not get so much as a response back from them. Will try Obama next maybe he will listen.

[TheTinybyte]

I think its a great ideah! it would make the oil less able to get into the marshes because it would be like a filter and solid is easier to pick up then a liquid.a few idiahs on collecting the feathers after they are dispensed is needed. now just to get the dumb people to listen.( thats the hard part)

[julianabanana1000]

what a fabulous idea, have you thought about forwarding this on to places like Greenpeace? You are brilliant!

[kungfusleestak]

Great idea!

[emotion999]

hope this idea gets passed on to the gov't/, BP and others that have the resources to ty it out. Bravo on your creativity