Conventionally all oil spill waste is incinerated or landfilled in specialized, lined hazardous material waste sites.

Please note: For the Gulf Oil spill, due to the synthetic toxic components in the dispersants only a very few small composting studies at universities can be conducted. BP told us all Gulf Spill waste was landfilled mostly in Florida and Mississippi.

2009 - Matter of Trust is the fiscal sponsor for Thomas Azwell & Ryan Carney's treatability study of hazardous waste oil collected by hair, fur and fleece clippings.

In partnership with Professor Norman Terry's Lab at UC Berkeley and thanks to a grant from Patagonia, Matter of Trust is very excited about the results. First, the mats are detoxified by thermophilic compost using huge amounts of green waste and elbow grease.

Finally, the mass is reduced by thousands of worms. Worms are bio-indicators and they know when the waste is ready to be eaten by them. The results are a rich worm castings fertilizer. Bacteria in the decomposing green waste (leaves, produce, mushrooms...) and in the tummies of the worms, work very hard to detoxify the oil and additives. It takes at least a year, but eventually it can all be reverted to a useful freeway grade fertilizer. In fact, you can buy Worm Poop fertilizer on our Online Store.

This project is a practical, hands on study to create an efficient closed loop system for oil spill clean up. See photos.