Using
sphagnum moss to soak up oil and fuel.
An acquaintance of mine had an unfortunate garden spillage
of home heating oil the other day. It came from an incorrectly attached pipe
after a boiler replacement and although it wasn’t enough of a spill to contact
the EPA, it did still leave a mess. There
was no chance of run off into water or the garden as it was on concrete, but it
did highlight just how quickly a natural disaster can happen. It pays to have some form soaking up
equipment to hand just in case something like this goes off without it being
spotted quickly. There could have been 1000 litres of oil run into the soil
from the tank within minutes and it’d take more than a bag of clay balls to
soak that up. The whole are would need
to be cleared and replaced which could cost thousands of euro and if home
insurance doesn’t cover you it’s be out of your own pocket.
I have a 25kg of the aforementioned clay balls and they can
help to soak up oil from my strimmer of the drops of petrol that come from the
mower. This clay resembles cat litter and will need to be mined. There are a couple of other alternatives we
can use now such as cut human hair or straw, but the most eco-friendly seems to
be coir fibre. It’s been used for years
as a garden product but has particular absorbent characteristics.
Coir to absorb oil
spills
Coir coconut fibre is an all-natural spill absorbent
product. One source of the coir ‘greenness’ is the fact it’s made from an
entirely renewable resource: coconut husks.
Though many absorbent products on the market today continue
to use mined clay as their main ingredient, the need and demand for greener
products has found coir to be the alternative.
Coir, at a microscopic level, has hollow channel structures.
This forces hydrocarbon spills (like petrol or oil) to be trapped inside the
spill absorbent product. Used coir holding fuel spills can be a fuel source for
energy producing incinerators and the
coir is biologically stable and free of harmful micro-organisms; therefore, it
provides a perfect environment for bio-degrading organisms to absorb the
hydrocarbons.
Coir is the most ecologically sustainable absorbent product
ingredient available in certain countries but not here in Ireland as the
shipping costs to the environment are huge. So here at home I’d be more tempted to use something
we produce ourselves in huge amounts locally. Sphagnum moss.
Absorbing oil with
sphagnum moss
Peat moss, long known as a garden enhancer, hanging basket
lining and believed by some to even have healing properties ( it was used
widely in the wars to heal wounds), is now being promoted as the best and most ‘environmentally
friendly’ way of cleaning up oil spills.
Like coir, the moss-based product cleans up and contains
spills on land and water. Sphagnum moss can be used on a wide range of
hydrocarbon and chemical spills outside and in the workplace, from diesel oil,
petrol and brake fluid leaks, to paint, acetone and ink.
Not all peat moss is suitable for this use and the
purification and dehydration of the product is vital for its effectiveness. The
sphagnum moss does need some treatment before being ready and if it could be
managed sustainably would be a perfect solution for us. The two largest
suppliers providing the service in Norway and Canada have processing plants to separate peat from inert
materials, like soil and twigs, and then send it through a dehydration unit
that reduces the moisture content to an average of only about 5 percent to 8
percent.
In that form, the peat is ‘activated,’ in that its natural
capillaries are seeking to get filled back up.
Since the dried
capillary walls of the cleaned moss are primarily organic, they have an
affinity for organic matter, like oil or hydrocarbon products like
solvents. The moss will absorb
hydrocarbons and other organics before any water or inorganic matter due to
this affinity. Once a hydrocarbon spill is pumped off to the greatest degree
practical, the rest can be absorbed into the moss where it is encapsulated; it
doesn't leach.
One of the big benefits of moss is that it provides a
habitat for naturally occurring microbes which break-down hydrocarbons into
organic carbon compounds.
The peat moss product can be strewn directly onto the oil
floating in the water. It absorbs the oil on contact and encapsulates it. Water
does not penetrate the peat moss, so the oil is trapped in a non-sticky crust
which is easily removed from the surface of the water.
When peat is used to absorb a hazardous material, it would
be subject to disposal laws and rules governing that hazardous material. But
because crude oil will eventually biodegrade, the contaminated peat moss - with
approval of local authorities, may be allowed to remain on site after a
clean-up as part of the remediation making clean up an affordable necessity
should an accident happen in your garden.
