Can a Seabin Clean Up Oil Spills?

The Short Answer Is Yes, and Here Are the Details!

Image taken by Melanie Abdelnour, Director of Deep Blue Cleanup

The Seabin V5 is equipped with oil absorbent pads able to absorb petroleum-based surface oils and detergent. But what happens when a boat with a diesel engine, with motor oil in this engine, sinks overnight? Well, this happened last month at a marina in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, and the Seabin played a leading role in cleaning up the huge mess.

According to our 2nd year Carleton University Engineering students, a 1 lbs oil pad can clean up to 30 lbs of oil out of our waters. (Aboujamee, Strachan, 2020)   

When the ship sank at the marina, our Seabin was able to come to the rescue and clean up this mess with the help of 3 oil pads at a time, for a total of 9 used by being inserted into the catch bag.  These oil pads cannot be thrown in the trash, and were disposed of by a company called Tomlinson Environmental.

Absorbent booms were also used along with the Seabin for a total of 3 days, but after the first day, there wasn’t a visible sheen on the surface of the water.  The Seabin worked great at the Sailing Club!  Have a look at these incredible videos of the Seabin sucking up the surface oil!

References:

“The Seabin V5 – The Seabin Project - For Cleaner Oceans.” Seabin, seabinproject.com/the-seabin-v5/.

Aboujamee, Firas, and Jared Strachan. Seabin Project: Report of Findings. Carleton University - CCDP 2100 B, 11 Aug. 2020.