SF BAY AREA GREENS OIL SPILL CLEANUP WITH
OILY-HAIRMAT-EATING MUSHROOMS

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SF BAY AREA GREENS OIL SPILL CLEANUP WITH OILY-HAIRMAT-EATING MUSHROOMS
Also see: How everyone can help, Photo Galleries, Ocean Beach cleanup blogs, Thank yous, and YouTubes

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Photo by Mona Miri ................................................... Photo by Paul Stamets

The location is being prepared for the study. People coming together from all over
to make this happen for the environment!

Update 11/30/07: More Pictures
Next meet for mushroom lasagna volunteers is at the Presidio Compost site is Monday at 9 AM.

Our thanks to the SF Chronicle 11/30/07!

SF Public Utilities Commission is dropping off the hazardous waste protective gear and more of the hairmats Monday at 10 AM.

THIS WEEKEND Oakland Museum's 38th Annual Fungus Fair
Paul Stamets - Fungi and mycelium expert- will be giving public lectures on December 1st and 2nd

WHY THIS WORKS

You shampoo your hair because it gets greasy. Hair is very efficient at collecting oil out of the air, off surfaces like your skin and out of the water, even petroleum oil. Hair is adsorbant (as in "clings to" unlike absorbant which is to "soak up.") There are over 320,000 hair salons in the US and each collects about 1 pound of hair a day. Right now, most of that goes into the waste stream, but it should all be made into hairmats. (more info).

Fungus (mushrooms) love hair and nails as any one with dreadlocks or a toenail fungus can attest. If you have any friends with dreadlocks, ask if you can cut one lock off and cut it open to see what's growing in there. Lots of cool stuff!

Fungus also loves oil:
"The roots of mushrooms, called mycelium (http://www.fungi.com/info/sems/index.html), produce enzymes that unlock wood fibers, which are composed of strings of carbon-hydrogen molecules in the form of cellulose and lignin. Similarly oil and most petroleum products are held together by these same molecular bonds. The mushroom mycelium breaks these bonds, and then re-constructs the oil into carbohydrates, fungal sugars, that make up the mushroom's physical structures." Paul Stamets, Fungi.com

So, first you soak up spilled oil with hair, then you turn the oily hair into compost with mushrooms. Mother Nature doesn't make waste, only opportunities. You just need to pay attention to her clues. For eons, she has been hanging oily bangs in front of our eyes and giving us nail fungus on our toes for a reason. But, she's concerned that humans are a bit slow as a species, thus clearly in need of an extra nudge.

An extraordinary number of key people (ecologists, scientists, politicians, press, funders, suppliers, Trustees, volunteers, permit experts, transportation and petroleum executives, labs, professors, lawyers...) needed to be able to connect quickly and in a "think outside the box" location during an oil spill. (See our Thank You list below.) And the rest is... our greener future!

Presidio Treatability Study Update:

The material from the Cosco Busan oil spill has been collected and is being stored by the NRC Environmental Services company. David Dell'Osso at NRC is recycling everything they can, but still have a few thousand gallons of non-recyclable waste; thus, plenty that they would like to contribute to our remediation study. NRC needs the permission from the Coast Guard at Incident Command Center to release it. And Coast Guard needs permission from the State of California, because the fuel is being tested and analyzed and is evidence in a crime scene. 11/28/07 The Coast Guard was told that the State of California had asked for a second analysis and that that could take weeks. Laura Phillips, Department of Emergency Management at Incident Command is working with all of us and everyone is doing all they can. But in the meantime, the Coast Guard has suggested a Plan B (see why below).

If release of the oil to us is delayed indefinitely due to litigation issues, we will start a series of concurrent studies with:

1. new Bunker C fuel which is what you saw in the water on November 7th, but even more potent than what is in storage after all this time at NRC Environmental Services.

2. used motor oil which accounts for an estimated 363 million gallons of annual oil. This is something that the public is responsible for and can fix, when we are made aware of the consequences!

Did you know? By far the greatest source of oil in our oceans comes from households. We can make a difference, according to the Smithsonian Institution and the Environment Protection Agency:

Every year, an estimated 706 million gallons of oil enter our planet's oceans:

Used Motor Oil dumped down drains and from street runoff accounts for 363 million gallons in our oceans!
50% of Americans change their own motor oil, but only 1/3 of that oil is collected and recycled.
Also, one typlcal 5 quart oil change improperly dumped can contanimate millions of gallons of freshwater.

Routine ship maintenance, washing containers - make up 137 million gallons of oil in our oceans.

From air pollution - 92 million gallons

Natural seepage of oil bubbling up from the sea bottom - 62 million gallons

Large Spill Accidents - 37 million gallons

Offshore drilling - 15 million gallons

Although our first choice was to remediate some of the gallons of nonrecyclable Cosco Busan oil so nearby, we understand that this is going to have wait for permission and that our scientific results will actually be more impressive with Plan B.

What is most important is that this is a best management practices study for future oil spills. One of our tests will actually be just putting hairmats and mushrooms in a container of Bunker C, and if that proves successful, then NRC and other groups will be provided with that information for remediating the Cosco Busan waste at their own sites. Instead of paying to have this waste incinerated, they're interested in cost effective methods that both spare the air and end up with nontoxic compost they can sell to freeway landscapers for a profit!