Cleaning oil spills with paper mill sludge

300px-Paper_Pulp_Mountain_near_Wetherby_-_geograph.org.uk_-_212738
English: Paper Pulp Mountain near Wetherby. Paper pulp is an environmentally friendly soil conditioner. This mound is waiting to be spread on local fields once the harvest has been gathered. The pulp is a waste product from the paper making industry and would have been disposed of in a landfill site. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Eco-innovation is at its best when the waste of one industry becomes the raw material of another.

This is precisely what the EU funded research project CAPS, is attempting to do with waste sludge from the paper industry. Its objective is to convert it into a highly absorbent material capable of cleaning up oil and chemical spills. There are about 18 million tons of paper mill sludges produced in the EU, each year. Most of it is disposed of by burning it. This could soon change. Franc ?ernec, project leader at the Technological,

Environmental and Logistic Centre in Koper, Slovenia came up with an innovative idea almost 17 years ago to reuse this by-product of the paper industry. “I knew about the high absorption rate of paper mill sludge for years,” he tells youris.com. “So I thought, why not use these characteristics and turn the waste into a useful product.” Petrol stations, car parks, laboratories and harbours could all soon use the new absorbent. Indeed, it is capable of absorbing any oil or fluid spilled on hard or water surfaces. As by-product from the paper industry, its main benefit is to be much cheaper to produce than any synthetic absorbent currently in use. Know the first marine outdoor test has been successfully held in the harbour of Koper.

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