
A polymer made from waste cooking oil and sulphur can clean up crude oil spills - xVedun
http://news.flinders.edu.au/blog/2018/04/19/slick-solution-oil-spills/
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williadc
For those who were annoyed by the inconsistent units in the story:

"International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation reporting about 7000 tonnes
of crude oil spilling from tankers into oceans in 2017 alone."

".. explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig on 20 April 2010
and subsequent release of approximately 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into
the Gulf of Mexico."

According to this site ([https://www.reference.com/science/much-barrel-oil-
weigh-b29e...](https://www.reference.com/science/much-barrel-oil-
weigh-b29eeb18d34510ef)) "In order to get a metric tonne of oil, one would
need about 7.33 barrels of oil."

7000 tonnes ~ 51,310 barrels

4.9 million barrels ~ 668,485 tonnes

~~~
hengheng
Sometimes I wonder how numbers are regarded in journalism. From the outside it
looks as if there was some cult around reproducing the exact string that the
source uttered, but with no understanding.

~~~
gldnspud
Having been quoted in a newspaper article once, I can attest that journalists
don't always care about precision when reproducing utterances.

~~~
iovrthoughtthis
Let's put journalists interview quotes on the blockchain! Then they can't be
faked and everyone can ensure they are real!

/s

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ehnto
I see a surprising amount of awesome work coming out of the pokey town of
Adelaide.

~~~
gumby
Even has a couple of Nobel Laureates!

~~~
soVeryTired
And a fields medalist, in one sense. Terry Tao is a Flinders graduate.

~~~
ehnto
The chap who helped make penicillin deliverable was from Adelaide as well.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Florey](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Florey)

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wodenokoto
Hopefully the Chinese gutter-oil industry[1] will start selling to this
purpose, instead of as cooking oil!

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil)
\- while recycling oil from deep fryers might not sound awful, some gutter oil
is literally taken from the gutter - sewage is being recycled and sold as
cooking oil in parts of China!

~~~
userbinator
Remember that manure has been used as fertiliser for basically as long as
humans have existed, so waste being recycled is not a new nor unusual
phenomenon.

From the article, at first it looks like the recyclers have done a pretty good
job...

 _The illegal oil shows no difference in appearance and indicators after
refining and purification because the law breakers are skillful at coping with
the established standards_

...but then...

 _Gutter oil has been shown to be quite toxic, and can cause diarrhea and
abdominal pain._

...makes me think the standards and testing processes need to be changed.

~~~
cimmanom
Using manure as fertilizer is very different, in the sense that anything grown
in fertilizer can be washed before eating. We don't generally wash things
between cooking them in oil and consuming them.

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haZard_OS
Spoiler Alert: The article takes too much space to say almost nothing.

 _sigh_ Science journalists.

