Oil on the waters — Science News, October 14, 1972
[In the late 1960s], about the best means of cleaning up oil was to put straw on it, then scoop up the oily straw by hand or with pitchforks. Now industry … has devised an arsenal of oil cleanup chemicals. Thin-layer chemicals can be used to herd oil together and to thicken it…. Chemicals are available as absorbents too. Still other chemicals … disperse oil throughout the water. Other chemicals show promise as oil-burning agents.
Update
Chemicals are the norm today, but the future of oil-cleanup technology may well be microbial. In recent years, researchers have shown
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