Paddling through the water, I suddenly felt a sticky substance on the sole of my foot. Massive amounts of tar had washed up on my local beach and I managed to get a large piece wrapped around my foot. This past summer I have seen an absurd amount of tar on beaches in southern California. I grew up occasionally using baby oil to scrub tar off my foot after a long day at the beach, but never in my life have I seen tar balls create a barrier between the sand and the sea. Tar balls, or tar patties, are oil-containing substances formed from both oil spills as well as from naturally occurring sources in the ocean floor. When oil floats to the ocean surface, a process called weathering breaks the oil up into smaller patches. Chemical and …show more content…
However, I believe that there are ways we can sustainably recycle tar, especially from our beaches. In this paper, I will explore already established ways to recycle beach tar, as well as offer my own proposals. When I see tar, I immediately think of oil. Therefore, I always wondered why we could not extract oil from tar balls and use it. According to The International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited, once oil sits in the ocean too long, it becomes contaminated with salt, sediments, and other materials that make it unusable. However, are there ways to extract the oil from the tar and leave behind the other organic materials? Oil should not be wasted because it is a non-renewable energy (Troisi, Barton, and Bexton 2016). Tar balls are always collected and then dumped into a landfill, buried, or incinerated. Current disposal methods move the pollution from the sea into the air and drinking water sources. In 2010 in Mississippi, tar balls covered local beaches from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill by BP. Pressure from community officials forced the Mississippi attorney to reach out for possible solutions. Several companies responded with innovative ideas. One local engineering firm proposed the use of a sand agitator to extract the sand from the oil, making the sand returnable to the beach and the oil sellable (Ho 2010). Another company called Hydra-tone Chemicals, proposed the use of safe coconut
In recycling, raw materials that have already been obtained are used, which reduces the need for more materials to be extracted. If we recycle enough to slow the rate of extraction bringing it lower or equal to the rate that our resources replenish themselves we are living sustainable. This project is especially important because it focuses on recycling objects that take a lot of resources to make and that can't be organically broken
In 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, causing millions of barrels of crude oil to be leaked out into the Gulf of Mexico. The extensive oil spill created a lot of pollution and far-reaching effects on the tourism industry. The resultant damage to marine wildlife such as fish will continue to be felt for many years to come. Weeks after the event, and while it was still in progress, the Deep Water Horizon oil spill was being discussed as a disaster that will impact global economies, markets, and mining policies. The potential consequences included structural shifts in energy policy, insurance marketplaces and risk assessment, and financial liabilities to be incurred by BP. The law that affected the operation of BP’s business was the Clean Water Act, which regulates the discharge of pollutants in US’s waters (EPA, 2008). Following the oil spill, regulations have been put in place to regulate oil drilling operations. The Obama administration proposed new regulations on offshore oil and gas drilling. The regulation focused on oil and gas drilling companies to use stronger blowout Preventers that have the capability to close an offshore well in case a drilling breach occurred accidentally.
The oil production in Canada has several significant issues that depict the destruction nature of the industry. These issues can be categorized as environmental, political, economic, and social. The environmental issues lead the pack; in that the environmental destruction associated with the industry is extensive. The environmental problems are climatic, land, water and air related (Best & Hoberg, 2015). Under climatic effect, studies indicate that the development of the tar sides has resulted to three times more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than in production of conventional oil. These environmental issues are caused by the composition of the tar sands. Unlike the convention oil, tar sands are a mixture of bitumen and sand. The process of separating the two results triples GHGs emissions when compared to conventional oil production (Koring, 2013).
It has been proven and stated by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) that “Tar sands oil is the dirtiest oil on
The La Brea tar pits have been well-known for over a century. Before the rise of European settlers, local Indian tribes used the tar to caulk canoes and waterproof tents. As the Industrial Revolution took off the early 1900s, the tar pits attracted oil men, as asphaltum is often associated with petroleum. Then,
The production of tar sands oil produces emissions that are three to four times higher than conventional oil. This is in part due to the large amount of energy required in the extraction and refining of the oil. Large quantities of heat, water, and chemicals are used to separate bitumen from sand, silt, and
In the article, they came up with the idea of gelling agents which is a chemical used to solidify any kind of spilled oil, making it easier to collect. Using the motion of the waves and sea, the gelling agent turns the oil into a rubbery material that can be easily removed from the water with nets, vacuuming, suction, devices or skimmers. This method helps clean the water without taking a lot of the water with it since when it solidifies you just pull out the chunks of oil instead of taking a lot water with it like if you were to try the hay or fleece
Lining the shore with biodegradable jute bags: These bags capture wave energy but still allow sand to drift naturally along the coast. There is concern that these jute bags can cause damage to the local ecology and are unsightly when decomposing which can have a negative impact on
For instance, Rufe, who is a scientist, states that we have not developed an approach that can clean more than 3 to 5 percent of the spilled oil” (Mufson, 2012). Furthermore, In the Gulf of Mexico, although 205.8 million gallons of oil have been spilled, just 51.8 million gallons have been collected, which equals approximately 25 percent. Moreover, in order to clean the Gulf from the oil spills almost 2 million gallons of toxic dispersants were used. Unfortunately, the toxic dispersants did not truly purify the spilled oil, but fractured them into tinier particles. As a consequence, that may make the oil more harmful for some ocean animals and plants ( A Center for Biological Diversity Report, 2008). However, with the increasing of offshore oil drilling accidents, and with no solution to solve the problem efficiently. The hazardous impact is not going to affect only on animals and plants. It might affect people who depend on the polluted area for food, ecological enrichment, and entertainment ( A Center for Biological Diversity Report,
The e Deepwater Horizon oil spill at the Macondo well began on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on 20 April 2010 killed 11 people and caused almost 5 million barrels of oil to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill covered 68,000 square miles of land and sea and triggered a response effort involving the use of nearly 2 million gallons of dispersant chemicals (Pallardy). Considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DHOS) resulted in widespread environmental and economic damage, the exact nature of which is only beginning to be understood (Shultz 59). This paper will address the causes of this unmitigated ecological disaster and discuss steps that need to be taken to prevent a similar disaster from occurring again.
As a young girl comes out of the ocean from swimming, suddenly she notices the brown oily stains on her bathing suit. When she looks back into the water, tar balls flow with the current of the water. The girl automatically washes the toxins off of her body, and she no longer wants to go to the beach for vacation. This results in lower tourist rates. Although accidents happen, the coastal workers continually strive to keep the beaches clean for the tourists that visit regularly. The recent British Petroleum oil spill that ravaged the Gulf Coast has turned people away from offshore drilling, but this type of drilling can really benefit the United States without great destruction.
Literature suggest that the essential management practices to follow when responding to an Oil Spill is to dispose of oil spill debris with the aim of
Swimming through a lake of blood, which was very close to me house was the first step to get to safety. At 2003, there was enormous war between Iraq and America. The war was harsh and devastating. It destroyed everything, but the most important things that it destroyed were the customs, and the ethics of Iraqi people. Few years after the war were ended. Iraq encountered many problems one of these problems was the security situation, it was very bad. Another trouble that they faced was the political relations between Iraq and other countries was poor. The Iraq economic situation was in its worst way and this was our third problems, but the main significant problem that we had was the civil war. As we, the Iraqi people, were lived there
The damage caused by the spill is almost immeasurable; ecological, political, economic, social it almost devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast fishing and tourism industries. Even in January 2011 a report was made by oil-spill experts from the University of Georgia stating that tar balls continue to wash up on beaches, collect in shrimp nets, kill marsh grass, and even undegraded oil in the seabed (Dykes, 2011). It will likely be years, if not decades, before the final assessment of damage, short-term and long-term, is accurately noted from this disaster.
Deepwater Horizon oil Spill: BP’s drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico had an explosion in April 2010, causing the “largest oil spill catastrophe in the petroleum industry history”. It caused the death of 11 men and injury to several others. “More than 150,000 barrels of crude oil gushed into the sea, every day, for almost 5 months and up to 68,000 square miles of the Gulf 's surface were covered” (1).