Janesville Made Fabric May Clean Up Oil in the Gulf

As oil continues to leak into the gulf, a Janesville, Fla., company thinks its product can help clean up the mess. Monterey Mills is the largest manufacturer of knit pile fabric in the United States. It says it can make a fabric that will soak up the oil. It's a bio-degradable dense wool fabric that the company says can mop up about 30 pounds of oil with just one linear foot. The fabric can be used both on the surface and below it.

Monterey Mills made a YouTube video, www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3Bku6uWHXQ, to prove its wool fabric can help clean up the oil still gushing into the gulf. In the video, the company mixes oil into a small swimming pool and then stretches its wool fabric over the top of it. The wool fabric nearly soaks up every last drop of the oil.

The company submitted its product to the federal government and to British Petroleum in May along with nearly 80,000 other companies and individuals. Monterey says it can make enough fabric to clean up about 20 miles of beachfront property every day.

Dan Sinykin, president of Monterey Mills, says distributing the wool on the Gulf would be easy. All you have to do is roll it out onto the surface of the water and then reel it back in; similar to the way a fisherman would throw out a net and wind it back.

Sinykin said the material can be used over and over because the oil can be extracted from the fabric. "If you put it under pressure, like under pinching rollers, the oil would release and the fabric could be reused."

The complete story and video are available at www.wrex.com/Global/story.asp?S=12705957.

Reprinted in part from WREX-TX, Florida