Jon StojanMajor oil spills are some of the most damaging man-made accidents to happen, causing terrible environmental and economic damage that can last for years. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill released 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and is considered the largest marine oil spill in history. Oil spills are incredibly dangerous to marine life, causing the death of an uncountable number of organisms, including endangered species of fish, mammals, and birds.
Peter Carrico, a seasoned international offshore sailor and retired US Naval Academy instructor, has had most of his life revolve around the ocean, and he has seen firsthand the destruction caused by oil spills to marine ecosystems. During his tenure at the Naval Academy, he taught collision regulations, which governed the prevention of maritime collisions, which are a major cause of oil spills, especially if an oil tanker is involved. Today, he is a member of the exclusive Cruising Club of America, and is part of the environmental committee. Part of his role is to conduct research and disseminate information about man-made risks to the ocean, such as plastic pollution and oil contamination.
“I believe that everyone whose work and hobbies involve the ocean develop a profound respect for it and realize how important it is to the life of everything on this planet,” Carrico says. “My perspective of the planet, just like many other sailors, is that it is an organism that must be taken care of, not just for our own enjoyment or livelihood, but because it is crucial to everybody’s survival. While oil is a product of nature, there are many places in nature where oil shouldn’t be.”
It’s this concern for the environment that drove Carrico to found Terra Marine, a company that supplies safe and effective cleaning materials for boats and marinas. The company is one of the largest licensed distributors of De-Oil-It, a hydrocarbon degrader compound that breaks down lipids, oils, and other petroleum-based substances, both on land and in water. De-Oil-It works by breaking the covalent bonds of hydrocarbons, eliminating the toxicity and allowing naturally occurring bacteria to complete the decomposition process. Once the process is finished, the oil has been separated into water and natural carbon compounds, which are harmless to the environment.
Manufactured by Greenworld Innovations Corp., De-Oil-It comes in several variants: two examples are, a ready-to-use formula and an industrial-strength concentrate, which can be diluted with water to the needed strength. In the safety data sheets for both variants, De-Oil-It is recognized as a Surface Washing Agent on the EPA-managed NCP list, and all its ingredients have been included by the FDA in its “Generally Regarded As Safe” category.
Aside from breaking down lipid- and petroleum-based compounds, De-Oil-It can also break down up to 99% of the 18 PFAS compounds, also known as ‘forever chemicals’, including the related surrogates. PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a large group of manufactured substances that do not occur naturally in the environment and are resistant to heat, water, and oil, hence the term ‘forever chemicals’. PFAS has been used in a range of industrial and everyday consumer products, but they have been associated with various health problems, such as certain cancers, fertility and pregnancy issues, and weakened immunity.
According to Carrico, breaking down PFAS is incredibly important, especially since these chemicals have been found virtually everywhere – in the soil, in the air, and even in people’s bloodstreams. These not only affect people’s health but also their livelihood, with farmers from all over the country losing their organic and food safety certifications over the presence of PFAS in their produce. In one organic farm that Carrico is aware of, the farm had used sludge from municipal water treatment plants as fertilizer around 20 to 30 years ago, when knowledge about PFAS wasn’t as comprehensive as it is today. Recently, the farm’s soil was tested and it returned an extremely high level of PFAS content.
Carrico says that De-Oil-It presents an affordable and easy-to-use way to remediate the environmental damage caused by oil spills and PFAS contamination. He adds that boats, as well as any facilities working with oil, such as offshore and onshore wells, will benefit from having De-Oil-It as an emergency spill remediation tool, minimizing the damage of accidental oil spills to the environment.
“Oil and plastics have been incredibly important to the advancement of human society, but they are also very harmful to the environment, especially when released into places they shouldn’t be,” Carrico says. “I’m just a single individual among billions of people in this world, but I believe that everyone can make a contribution to protecting the planet in their own way. Mine is making De-Oil-It available to more people, helping prevent the severe environmental damage caused by oil and other chemical spills.”