Feathers to soak up Philippine oil spill
`The Philippine Coast Guard is appealing for chicken feathers and human hair to help sponge up the country’s worst oil spill.
A tanker chartered by refiner Petron Corp sank in heavy seas on August 11, oozing about a 10th of its two-million litre cargo of industrial fuel off the central island of Guimaras, affecting 40,000 people and 200km of coastline.
Petron, in which the Philippine government and Saudi state oil firm Saudi Aramco each have a 40 per cent stake, said a fresh spill was spotted late on Wednesday.
“We are appealing for the supply of indigenous absorbent materials like chicken feathers, human hair and rice straw,” Harold Jarder, head of the Coast Guard in Iloilo, a province north of Guimaras, told Reuters.’
