TIP 7 — CLEAN—UP OF OIL FROM SHORELINES

The official statistics collected and maintained by the ITOPF organization which periodically releases these technical information papers, demonstrate that the vast majority of the oil spills from vessels occur not too far from the shore. Taking into account that the measures normally taken to combat the oil floating on the water surface is limited by numerous constraints such as time and weather, it is difficult o prevent oil from reaching shorelines.

Once the oil has reached the shoreline, there will be significant effort required to get all affected areas cleaned. That is why it is very important that well rehearsed and comprehensive arrangements covering the shoreline clean-up are reflected in contingency plans. The techniques used for the clean-up of shorelines would not usually required any specialized and technically complex equipment since they are quite straightforward.

However, it should be clearly understood that improper techniques and arrangement can seriously aggravate the damage that has been caused by the spill itself. The intention of the present technical information paper is to give description of the clean-up techniques and advise which of them would best suit each of the stages of the cleaning operations, covering different types of shorelines.