The recovery from an oil spill requires a lot of time, depending on how much oil was spilled.
Natural Cleansing
There is a way mother nature takes care of cleaning up the oil spills. There are three types of bacteria that eats away the oil. They all occur naturally to remove oil from the ecosystem and replacing the oil and other populations in the food chain causing no additional harm to the environment. These bacteria are both anaerobic (Sulfate-reducing bacteria) and aerobic (General aerobic bacteria).
Mankind Cleansing
There are many ways mankind gets rid of oil spills. One way is where biological agents are used to remove the oil. This is known as Bioremediation. This can also tie in with another clean up method known as dredging that uses oils and detergents to clean up the oil. The oil can also be cleaned up by vacuuming the oil out. The oil can be sucked out along with some water which then can be partially separated from the water.The much simpler cleaning methods involve
creating a controlled burning of the oil to evaporate the oil, but it
unfortunately has a negative side causing air pollution. Another simple method
is to just sit and wait. This usually is only when the oil spill happen in real
sensitive areas.
Helping Animals
The act of rescuing animals affected by the oil spill and cleaning them up can also help in cleaning up the disasters. Trained professionals endure with hazardous waste and oil contaminated animals. The animals are first fed and kept in a warm environment. They are then cleaned up with cleaning agents and warm water. They are finally medically exanimated and then left out into the wild.