The use of natural sorbents to clean up oil spill in an eco-friendly
and cost effective way is promising, and more attention should be
paid to this prospect. The Literature shows that natural sorbents are
very effective and, apparently, the most eco-friendly sorbent for oil
spill cleanup. Adebajo et al. (2003), Karan et al. (2011) and others
did a good review on the efficiency of natural sorbents for oil spill
clean-up. Among these natural sorbents, straws and cotton proved
to be the best natural sorbent materials known and tested with
respect to certain criteria, which include sorption capacity and
availability. In the past, the efficacy of cotton and straw has been
thoroughly explored. However, other natural products which may
be equally efficient or even more are given less attention. Moreover,
the availability of cotton and straw may be challenging in some
tropical regions of the world where weather and soil are not suitable for their cultivation. As a result, the use of those natural
sorbents may not be economical in such locations. It is imperative,
then, to study the applicability of other available natural products
abundant in the region, particularly waste products, such as
coconut shells, corn cobs, banana pith, and sugarcane bagasse.
Other effective natural sorbents are human hair and animal skins or
hair/fur. Most of these are dumped as waste. Instead of treating
them as waste, they can be harnessed to complement other
methods to clean up oil spills from small and large water bodies,
depending on the level of their abundance. They can be gathered,
collected, and processed in mat form and stored for future oil spill
eventualities. Hair donations can come from salons, barber shops,
and pet groomers. The hairs donated can then be processed into
mat or cushion forms to be used by cleanup volunteers to protect
shorelines and beaches. Example of the success story of this
method is that reported by Dabney (2010) about a volunteer
organization called “Matter of Trust” that successfully used hair
mats from public donations for cleanup after the San Francisco Bayoil spill in 2007. However, not as much concern has been given to
these alternative natural sorbents as has been given to cotton. This
article therefore reviews current cleanup methods and also makes
strong emphasis on the efficacy of natural sorbents for oil spill
clean-up and the need to direct more research attention to other
sustainable natural sorbents. Finally, a specific attention and
research proposal and guidelines into the use of palm leaves as
natural sorbents for oil spill cleanup are outlined because of their
great abundance in the tropics.