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Better Farming Ontario Featured Articles

Better Farming Ontario magazine is published 11 times per year. After each edition is published, we share featured articles online.


Cleaning up oil spills with milkweed

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Using the crop from the world's only industrial milkweed farm, Quebec-based Protec-Style has found an ingenious new way to clean up oil spills, the CBC reports.

Protec-Style president François Simard says milkweed fibre is perfectly suited for cleaning oil spills as the fibre is hollow, waxy and naturally repels water. Simard told Vermont Public Radio that milkweed fibre "can do five times better a job than polypropylene (the petroleum-based material currently used to clean spills) because it can absorb up to 50 litres per kilogram of fibre." Furthermore, as milkweed is also the habitat and food source of the endangered monarch butterfly, Protec-Style's milkweed farms have an added benefit for the environment.

According to the CBC, Protec-Style currently has 325 hectares of milkweed farm in Quebec and has entered into a $186,651 contract with Parks Canada to supply 50 national parks with the absorbent kits. BF

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