It has been a month and a half in the ongoing Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which has released an estimated 30 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But one topic that hasn’t been addressed is what will happen to all the oil that continues to be recovered.
According to British Petroleum’s (BP) latest numbers, already 368,000 barrels of oil-based liquid have been collected during the first week of June, mostly from skimming the Gulf surface. The company has not yet said what will happen to this recovered material.
While BP is financially responsible for handling all waste collected during the spill, it is partnering with each impacted state and third-party haulers to determine an appropriate disposal plan in that specific state.
So while there are plenty of things you can do to help the relief effort, collecting and attempting to recycle the oil should not be one of them.
This is because the oil that spilled is crude oil, and oil recycling locations in the U.S. are only set up to collect refined oil. BP’s crude oil is a different product than the Castrol motor oil you put in your car.
Another reason is that when oil is collected for recycling, the U.S. EPA requires that it be tested to see if it is hazardous. If it fails the test, it must be disposed of as hazardous waste. It is uncertain whether oil mixed with salt-water would pass these tests.
For oil that is washed ashore, it will often appear in the form of tar balls. These balls are a mixture of oil and sand and are able to be used to produce road surface material such as asphalt. BP has also not commented on what will be done with the tar balls that are already showing up on Gulf beaches.