Researcher Thomas Azwell of the University of California, Berkeley is becoming the go-to guy for cleaning up oil by turning it into compost. In a 2007 oil spill in the San Francisco Bay, Azwell helped a group of volunteers who tried, unsucessfully, to compost oil-soaked hairmats using mushrooms. In the wake of the Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Azwell is hoping to take a small-scale experiment from his test lab north of San Francisco to the Gulf Coast. Azwell first "trains" micro-organisms to eat hydrocarbons, the toxic compounds found in oil, then lets earthworms finish off the process in compost heaps. As part of a commission advising the Obama administration on clean-up options, Azwell is working to convince the many government agencies involved in the clean-up, and BP, which is funding it, to use organic materials to skim and collect spilled oil, which he'll then compost. In short, Azwell wants to turn toxic sludge into non-toxic fertilizer to restore Gulf Coast wetlands.

Researcher Thomas Azwell of the University of California, Berkeley is becoming the go-to guy for cleaning up oil by turning it into compost. In a 2007 oil spill in the San Francisco Bay, Azwell helped a group of volunteers who tried, unsucessfully, to compost oil-soaked hairmats using mushrooms. In the wake of the Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Azwell is hoping to take a small-scale experiment from his test lab north of San Francisco to the Gulf Coast. Azwell first "trains" micro-organisms to eat hydrocarbons, the toxic compounds found in oil, then lets earthworms finish off the process in compost heaps. As part of a commission advising the Obama administration on clean-up options, Azwell is working to convince the many government agencies involved in the clean-up, and BP, which is funding it, to use organic materials to skim and collect spilled oil, which he'll then compost. In short, Azwell wants to turn toxic sludge into non-toxic fertilizer to restore Gulf Coast wetlands.