Tar Balls from the Gulf
Derrick Ho of CNN reports that BP and its contractors in the clean up efforts have been dumping the collected tar balls into landfills.
When community officials protested, Mississippi attorney Tim Holleman sent out an e-mail asking if there were alternatives to deal with the waste.
At least five companies replied, offering possible ways to reuse or recycle the oily waste.
But instead of dealing with the waste in a more environmentally sensitive way, tar balls, oily sand and vegetation, and soiled gloves and suits from the thousands of temporary BP workers who've been working to clean up beaches along the Gulf of Mexico have been dumped in landfills along the Gulf Coast.
BP has collected close to 40,000 tons of "oily solid" waste from the cleanup activities, which means that the amount of "waste" that's collected is increasingly becoming a big problem.
Residents worry that the estimated 1,200 tons of oil-tainted byproducts dumped at the landfill would contaminate its soil and water.
But if the solid waste is not dumped into landfills, where can it go?
Dumping in landfills is the easiest and cheapest way of dealing with the waste washed ashore, but then such a disposal method will generate more environmental and health concerns in the next 20 years.
There's no way to get around the cost of safely recycling or disposing the oil. Holleman said that based on estimates he received, dumping the junk in landfills costs about $35 to $40 per ton, while recycling can cost twice as much. A soil agitation and recycling technology exists, but it carries a $60 per ton price tag.
Even if BP is willing to foot the entire clean-up bill, there's still governmental red tape and regulatory hurdles to get through before any better clean-up technology can be applied to a situation that's getting more urgent with each passing day.
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