November 12, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA IS REVOLUTIONIZING AND GREENING OIL SPILL CLEAN UP
Concerned citizens pour out on to San Francisco beaches to clean Cosco Busan oil spill
SAN FRANCISCO, CA…. Over 500 concerned citizens came out to Ocean Beach in San Francisco on Sunday 11/11/07 to encourage government agencies to hire more professional toxic clean up crews. It’s important that the public doesn’t go out and touch this bunker fuel with their bare hands. “Where there are no volunteers or official crews, we’ve seen picnicking families with kids making sand castles and using the oil as decoration. Some people are picking up dog poo and oil in the same bags and putting toxic waste in public garbage cans,” said Lisa Gautier of MatterOfTrust.org.
So surfers and environmentalists have unofficially banded together calling themselves Kill the Spill, while Government Agencies are concentrating on the harder-hit, closed beaches. “We believe that if the public is going out to clean up, then they really should be protected. We have these extremely efficient hair mats (absorbent oil spill clean up mats made out of human hair ) and we’re donating them to the cause,” she adds.
Matter of Trust is also coordinating individuals and companies that are donating their time and hundreds of protective Tyvek paint suits, gloves, garbage bags, face masks, and tarps (to consolidate the toxic waste), as well as food and drinks to this grassroots campaign. So far, in 2 specific spots, thousands of pounds of oily hair mats have been collected in designated garbage bags. Gautier says “Kill the Spill has also put up warning signs all along Ocean Beach. We have been talking with the official agencies and contracted companies. Everyone is trying to help everyone else.”
The great news is that this waste may not have to stay toxic. Since it’s just hair and oil, there are remediation research possibilities, such as an oyster mushroom that may cling to the hair and eat the hair and oil while detoxifying it in a few months. A donation of $10,000 worth of oyster mushroom spawn from Paul Stamets of Fungi.com has been made to Matter of Trust and thanks to helpful information from contractors like Universal Environmental we’ve managed to contact The O’Briens Group , contracted for shore activity, toxic waste collection and disposal, and we hope to donate the spawn and set up a remediation site.
Other Bay Area cities and counties are asking for hair mats and even for the loose hair Matter of Trust has in storage (mailed in by thousands of philanthropic hair salons throughout the US). While this is being coordinated, Matter of Trust is also suggesting that agencies contact Ottimat.com They can fill industrial quantity size orders of hair mats and deliver within 4 days. Ottimat and subsidiary SmatGrow hair mats are made in China (typically used by professional rose growers as fertilizer, but exactly the same as the oil spill mats).
San Francisco is the “City that can” get this cleaned up with people power and a little help from Mother Nature!
Matter Of Trust, established in 1998, is an ecological public charity concentrates on man-made surplus, natural abundance and eco-education.
###
Press Contact:
Lisa Craig Gautier
President, Matter of Trust
Lisa@matteroftrust.org
415 235 2403 cell
MatterOfTrust.org
Please check out our Photos and Videos
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/MatterOfTrust
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matter-of-Trust/463115455390?v=wall&ref=ts