Oil-spill vacuum cleaner finds garbage hard to handle

A giant vacuum cleaner designed to clean up oil spills caused red faces yesterday when it became blocked by a garbage bin bag during a public demonstration.

The ORCA, or Oil Response Cleaning Apparatus, is considered a revolutionary way of clearing debris and oil spills from the sea. But the show flopped when an oversized bag of rubbish blocked the $150,000 machine's main pipes.

Dick Denning, a business development consultant for SEKA, the company which helps to market ORCA, said the incident was regrettable and that another demonstration would be held soon.

"The trouble was that no dress rehearsal was carried out, and the machine is designed more for picking up oil than rubbish," he said. "One of the demonstrators threw in a very large bag, too big for the pipe, and basically it got stuck.

"As a device for crude oil, it is very effective, and it was a shame that this happened." Denning said the machine, developed in Singapore, has had great success in the past.

"Independent users of the ORCA show its results to be more effective than other oil spill devices. In Singapore it was used to help clear a 2,800-tonne spill in October 1997 and was the only machine that didn't clog up.

"It can also be used to clear out oil tankers because it can suck up a 25-kilo weight from a height of 100 feet, which is pretty incredible." Another marine expert who saw the device at work was not so convinced.

"It would probably work well in picking up crude oil that has been sitting on the surface for a day or two because it becomes thick and mousse-like, but it wasn't very effective at removing small pieces of debris just below the water line, which from an environmental point of view is pretty disappointing."