Recycle your oil

[Harry S.]

Not a typical post, but I had to share this. Just received it from a friend.

[Mark E.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Back in the day, my older brother would position the car over a storm drain by driving two wheels onto the curb. Nobody gave it a second thought (mid-60s).

Much easier than digging post holes.

[Don L.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Thanks for this thread. I was just sharing over the weekend how as a kid in the 1960s, my Dad had me pour discarded oil from his oil change along the fence to keep weeds from growing up through. Dad's long gone but I think that oil's still "doing its job", even today.

What were we thinking?

[Dick W.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Not a typical post, but I had to share this. Just received it from a friend.

I know of companies that would haul you used oil off and for a fee oil your dirt road to keep the dust down. There was one in East Texas that was oiling roads with used transformer oil until it came out how hazardous that PCB's were. He quietly closed his business

[Duke W.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Maybe it's that town in Texas, but I recall seeing a documentary where an entire small town had to be abandoned due to PCBs in road oil, and it became an EPA "Superfund" cleanup site.

In CA any shop that does commercial oil changes has to accept used engine oil from DIYers. I turn mine in at a Pep Boys about a quarter mile from my house.

My understanding is that this used engine oil goes through a filtering process and is then mixed with the heavy fuel oil used by commercial ocean going ships, like container ships, that are powered by huge diesel engines. The largest are 36" bore and 84" stroke, 5 to 14 inline cylinders, two-stroke turbocharged rated at a little over 7000 HP per cylinder @ about 100 RPM, which is a bit over 100,000 HP for the full 14 cylinder version, but they probably only cruise at about 90 RPM, which is a mean piston speed of 1260 feet per minute.

A 327 at the same MPS is turning 2324 RPM, which is about 60 MPH in top gear with a 3.08 axle and OE revs/mile tires.

Duke

[Rich G.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Our drain oil goes to the mechanic shop at the airport. He has a waste oil heater and he usually gets through the cold months without buying any heating oil.

Rich

[Dick W.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Maybe it's that town in Texas, but I recall seeing a documentary where an entire small town had to be abandoned due to PCBs in road oil, and it became an EPA "Superfund" cleanup site.

In CA any shop that does commercial oil changes has to accept used engine oil from DIYers. I turn mine in at a Pep Boys about a quarter mile from my house.

My understanding is that this used engine oil goes through a filtering process and is then mixed with the heavy fuel oil used by commercial ocean going ships, like container ships, that are powered by huge diesel engines. The largest are 36" bore and 84" stroke, 5 to 14 inline cylinders, two-stroke turbocharged rated at a little over 7000 HP per cylinder @ about 100 RPM, which is a bit over 100,000 HP for the full 14 cylinder version, but they probably only cruise at about 90 RPM, which is a mean piston speed of 1260 feet per minute.

A 327 at the same MPS is turning 2324 RPM, which is about 60 MPH in top gear with a 3.08 axle and OE revs/mile tires.

Duke

I think you are talking about Love Canal in New York.

[Alan D.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Was just loading up the truck to drop off my waste oil to a shop that also gets "through the cold months without buying any heating oil".
These waste oil heaters are a good deal as long as they get treated right.

[Donald H.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Times Beach, a suburb of St Louis, was abandoned in 1983 due to
dioxin contamination. As I the dioxin was used Somehow in street paving.

[Gary R.]

Re: Recycle your oil

My first job out of trade school in 1977 was for a machine dealer. We used Safety Kleen bare handed by then because no one used gloves! So far no cancer and I sure hope it doesn't show up but it's in the back of my mind. I was told to empty it and dump the old fluid in the back field. It wasn't more then a few gallons and we didn't empty it very much but I never liked that approach, but I was the new kid and did what I was told.

[Duke W.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Times Beach, a suburb of St Louis, was abandoned in 1983 due to
dioxin contamination. As I the dioxin was used Somehow in street paving.

Times Beach was a ghost town in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States,
17 miles (27 km) southwest of St. Louis and 2 miles (3 km) east of Eureka.
Once home to more than two thousand people, the town was completely
evacuated early in 1983 due to TCDD—also known as dioxin—contamination.

Yeah, that's the one I was referring to... just forgot that it was dioxin contamination, not PCBs. I recall that the town just had dirt roads that were oiled down periodically to hold down dust. People started getting sick and the investigation showed that the road oil contained dioxin, but I don't recall how it got into the oil.

Duke

[Paul Y.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Yeah, that's the one I was referring to... just forgot that it was dioxin contamination, not PCBs. I recall that the town just had dirt roads that were oiled down periodically to hold down dust. People started getting sick and the investigation showed that the road oil contained dioxin, but I don't recall how it got into the oil.

Duke

The year after I graduated from high school in 1966, I worked at a gas station pumping gas, that sold reclaimed oil. I wonder when they quit doing the reclamation and it went away. It looked the same as the other oil in cleanliness, etc. and they offered non detergent oil at that time also.

[Duke W.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Same here. I worked at a gas station/car wash beginning in the early sixties when I was still in junior high. During the summer months when school was out. I usually had the late shift after we closed the car wash at 6 PM, and I closed the gas station at 9 PM... had a lot of regular customers with old, oil-burning beaters that would come in and order "two bucks worth a regular" and a quart of that "two-bit" oil. We referred to it as "re-refined" oil, but I don't know what the process was, and it was basically non-detergent.

The boss bought it in bulk in one of those waist-high steel boxes with a built in pump. We'd pump it into tall, reusable one quart glass bottles with threaded-on metal spouts that were common back then. We kept the bottles in a rack just outside the office and sold a lot of it.

There wasn't much business after about 7 PM so I spent most of my time tidying up the service bays and refilling those bottles of re-refined oil.

Duke

[Gene M.]

Re: Recycle your oil

It would seem that with today’s technology the used motor oil could be refined and be a better starting point vs crude. All the different additives might be more of an issue than I think. But this is just an off the cuff thought.

[Brad H.]

Re: Recycle your oil

Most towns that I have seen now have drop off stations that take your oils etc., and dispose of them properly for no charge. Cmon, isn't that what we are suppose do?