How do you practice cleaning up oil spills...

without actually dumping toxic oil into the ocean? Norway has come up with one solution: use popcorn instead. Yes, as part of an exercise in cleaning up oil spills, Norway will dump 175 cu. ft. of popcorn into a Norwegian fjord. Popcorn coats the surface much like oil would, but without the nasty side-effects, so people can practice using oil booms and doing shore clean-up without harming wildlife. The exercise will also be a test of whether the popcorn can be cleaned up before it's eaten by the local birds and fish.

Posted by Jennifer on Wednesday, June 9 2004, 10:22 AM