The worst oil spill in U.S. history has inspired a deluge of ideas to contain the ooze, cap the geyser or keep the sludge from staining more shorelines, reports Tampa Bay Online.
Rudimentary blueprints have been sketched on scrap paper. Contraptions cobbled together in home garages. Computer-animated clips posted on the Internet.
Plans have called for unleashing oil-eating bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico or sprinkling oil-sopping plant clippings on the blobs. Also pitched, in a video posted on YouTube, was an oil-stanching fabric resembling a gigantic bandage laid over the surging leak.
But some people who have submitted their ideas to BP say they don’t get feedback from the petroleum giant and wonder whether bureaucratic red tape is stifling their eureka moments.
“I think it’s bogus,” Warren Titus of Tampa said about BP’s submissions policy, launched via a toll-free phone line and the company’s website soon after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.
Most feel that their suggestions are ignored and the company’s call for submissions is nothing more than a public relations stunt.
Photo by ibtimes.