How Many Sheep Does It Take To Clean Up An Oil Spill?

An old family friend, Daniel Sinykin, sends in the following video of his potential solution to the BP Oil disaster. His idea is an improvement on the hair based techniques that have received attention in the wake of the ongoing spill. (According to one report the hair booms are not being used because in early tests they became water logged and sank.)

In the following clips, Daniel demonstrates the potential effectiveness of using high density wool to soak up the oil.

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Daniel is hoping for two things over the coming days and weeks. First, he hopes that field trials in the Gulf prove successful. And second, he hopes that he can get the attention of BP and Federal Government.

From an interview Daniel gave to NBC Chicago:

So far, Monterey Mills has yet to be contacted by BP or the government, but Sinykin said they expect a meeting very soon. In the meantime, they plan to head to the Gulf Coast in a few weeks’ time and, armed with rolls of wool, attempt to prove their concept.

Good luck with that Daniel! A few questions come to mind though, some of them serious… It’s one thing to soak up oil in a small tub or pool, but another task altogether to do it in open water. Will it work on a much larger scale in choppy water? When water comes over the top of this fabric will it sink? Just how many sheep would it take to clean up a gusher of this magnitude? Are there possibly enough wool producing livestock in America to meet the demand? Will alpaca wool work as well as cashmere? Would it be just as effective to simply dump millions of sheep into the Gulf, and then scoop them up after they are done soaking up the oil? Do sheep float, or just their wool?

Our guess is that it is going to take a diversity of solutions to treat the largest man-made environmental disaster in American history. Perhaps this is one of them.