Super Sponge!

I know, I know. The most exciting title for any post I’ve ever written. Please, settle down.

According to an article in Fortune Small Business the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has “has ordered that all towns with populations of more than 10,000 must stop grease- and oil-contaminated storm water from running into lakes, rivers, and other waterways by 2008.” I’m surprise Bush let them make this mandate. His advisors must have proved that there was no causal link whatsoever to that global warming thing.

To clean the water, cities are turning to sponges. Mmmm. The sponges are “made from the same plastics found in automotive dashboards and sneakers, can be molded to fit any catch basin, drain or pipe. It absorbs oils, PCBs and other toxins while allowing water to pass through.”

My dream is to have a giant one put in the Mississippi River just north of every major city so that by the time the water flows past the city it’s much cleaner than it currently is. That would be schweeeeeet!

The company that makes the sponge, AbTech, is debuting a new version in January. Their current sponge, the Smart Sponge, “has killed about 75 percent of those types of bacteria and costs about one-tenth the price of systems currently used to clean up polluted water. (Most cities either route contaminated seawater through a filtration plant or set up large lamps along the beach, which destroy bacteria by shining ultraviolet rays into the water.)”

AbTech CEO CEO Glenn Rink launched the company in 2000. ‘A former executive at an agricultural products company, Rink says he drew his early inspiration from a 1996 oil spill off the coast of Puerto Rico. “I watched government crews swabbing fish and rocks with what looked like paper towels,” says Rink, now 46. “I figured there had to be a better way.”‘

This is the kind of innovative thinking that gets me hot, and we need more of it. Right now. I challenge every American to create his or her own “Smart Sponge”.