Oil Spills

1 litre of mineral oil can spoil 1 million litres of water!

These pictures were taken after an accident near the Spanish coast. Thousand of birds, fish and other marine animals died.

The so-called black gold glitters rather dirty, smells disgusting and is poisonous above all. Since it usually has less density than water, it floats on top. So when huge amounts of oil leak out of a damaged oil tanker, an enormous oil slick floating on the water surface forms as a result. If this oil slick moves towards the coast, not only the water, but the land too is contaminated.

Fish that swim in polluted water die fast. Birds and marine mammals freeze to death or drown once their sticky fur or plumage has lost its warming and water-repellent effect. Even months later, many animals still die because of the toxic components of the oil, even if they have survived the first few days. The offspring of the surviving beasts suffer from the results of the catastrophe as well - they fail to appear at all or they are born deformed.

Plankton and small organisms like clams, snails, crabs and worms die, too. Since the fish feed on them, they soon run out of food. The fish stocks decrease more and more. Now the catastrophe directly affects humans that live along the shores as well. Fishermen, who have lived on fishing for generations, lose their jobs. And the people can’t eat the caught fish since they are poisoned.

It takes nature decades to recover completely from an oil spill.

Oil not only gets into the water through oil spills. Rivers wash several thousand tons of lubricants and fuel into the sea that was disposed of via the sewer.

Petrol, diesel and used oil do not belong in the drain under any circumstances. Mineral oil products are hardly decomposed by microorganisms, if at all!