Didn't see this already posted here. I just recently read it and the article below is from December, so fairly new. There are now farmers starting to grow milkweed to harvest the fluffy silk for use as an absorbent in oil spills. It works better than the synthetic petroleum based product currently being used.

My first thought was this is great...unless they do something stupid like treat the milkweed to prevent damage from caterpillars. But, it looks like they aren't doing that, and are well aware it will be a benefit to the monarchs as well. So that should help offset some of the damage from the other people ridding their land of milkweed, at least a little.

Every time I harvest milkweed seed I fondle the fluff and think "I should be able to do something with that". I knew about the WWII life jackets already, and wondered why no one has done anything large scale since. The article also mentions using the sap for latex and the fluff for outerwear.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/milkweed-touted-as-oil-spill-super-sucker-with-butterfly-benefits-1.2856029