Biodegradable Diesel Rated Oil?

[mrutkaus]

Animal fat was the first oil, for lamps and later for greasing wagons.

Mike

 

[Soundguy]

I'm afraid i probably won't participate in that discussion.

Everybody here is a big boy. Everybody knows its a no-no to dump hazardous waste out into the environment.. when there are SOOOOO many ways to avoid it.. ( yes.. some of them might be as inconvienient as putting some paper down... ) Anyone who wants to read about this sort of thing can hit the EPA site.

I'm not sure this forum is a good place to try to discuss the benefits of dumping something out on the ground that is going to leach out all sorts of nice things into the envirnoment...


Soundguy

This ought to be interesting! The professional petroleum engineer and the professional waste water treatment engineer discuss pouring oil on the ground.

I know both of you are polite and reasonable. I would like to learn more about this topic (I have spots where Dad dumped oil that still won't grow anything) so it will be interesting to see where this topic goes if you guys are willing to discuss this further.

Ralph, what happens if that oil gets into the groundwater before it is completely broken down?

 

[California]

Ok, fair enough.

I have a simpler question that maybe someone can answer: I read somewhere there are shrubs (?) you can plant that will draw oil residue out of the soil. I don't know if they break down the oil, or if you later discard the shrub itself as hazardous waste.

Does anyone have experience with this?

 

[AlanB]

I will throw in a couple of thoughts.

While throwing words around like "hazardous Waste" sounds good on a website such as this, "used Oil" is very seldom considered "Hazardous Waste" There are certainly times and instances when it falls into that category, but they are by far the minority.

Anyway, California, as to what you are referring too, I think you are referencing Peat. There are several Peat products used for Bioremediation.

The short version is they dig, sift, sort the peat, then dry it. At that point peat works very well as an oil / hydrocarbon absorbent. It will also not absorb water which is a very handy feature when talking about spill remediation.

The peat will take the hydrocarbon into the cell structure and then not release it in the normal battery of tests used by the EPA to determine disposal or charachteristics of a waste.

Several areas are doing in-situ remediation of spills, seeps, old ground contamanition etc. with Peat.

Here is one of the manufacturers that we work well with.
Environmentally Friendly Peat Moss Absorbents

There are a bunch of others out there as well.

Something else you may find interesting is a process called land farming.

Short version again is you take your POL (Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants) contaminated soil, spread it out over a controlled area, water it and add microbes, often in the form of turkey or chicken poo, capture the leachate and then re-use it as top water, turn your mix exposing it too the air, while keeping some of it "cooking" if you will. The longer carbon chains will break down and the shorter carbon chains will go out into the air, often times this soil is then sold (after meeting standards) as road fill, landfill topcap etc.

We looked at doing it in house at one point and it was not economiclly feasable for us.

Our POL contaminated soil currently goes to a Landfarm up in FWJ's neck of the woods

Not really positive if that is what you were referencing, but it sounded close.

 

[Soundguy]

Sounds like your mind is made up.. so i won't waste time discussing the point.. except that to say that most of the people who classify waste oil as hazardous waste are: the government..

DOT lists waste oil as a hazardous waste. strikingly enough .. so does the EPA..

The epa has 4 big list.. F, K, P, and U.. and anything not on those lists that meets D001, D002, D003, D004-D043 specs also qualifies. ( 1, 3 and 4 especially )

Soundguy

I will throw in a couple of thoughts.

While throwing words around like "hazardous Waste" sounds good on a website such as this, "used Oil" is very seldom considered "Hazardous Waste" There are certainly times and instances when it falls into that category, but they are by far the minority.

Anyway, California, as to what you are referring too, I think you are referencing Peat. There are several Peat products used for Bioremediation.

The short version is they dig, sift, sort the peat, then dry it. At that point peat works very well as an oil / hydrocarbon absorbent. It will also not absorb water which is a very handy feature when talking about spill remediation.

The peat will take the hydrocarbon into the cell structure and then not release it in the normal battery of tests used by the EPA to determine disposal or charachteristics of a waste.

Several areas are doing in-situ remediation of spills, seeps, old ground contamanition etc. with Peat.

Here is one of the manufacturers that we work well with.
Environmentally Friendly Peat Moss Absorbents

There are a bunch of others out there as well.

Something else you may find interesting is a process called land farming.

Short version again is you take your POL (Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants) contaminated soil, spread it out over a controlled area, water it and add microbes, often in the form of turkey or chicken poo, capture the leachate and then re-use it as top water, turn your mix exposing it too the air, while keeping some of it "cooking" if you will. The longer carbon chains will break down and the shorter carbon chains will go out into the air, often times this soil is then sold (after meeting standards) as road fill, landfill topcap etc.

We looked at doing it in house at one point and it was not economiclly feasable for us.

Our POL contaminated soil currently goes to a Landfarm up in FWJ's neck of the woods

Not really positive if that is what you were referencing, but it sounded close.

 

[SkunkWerX]

I find it much too easy to catch, contain and dispose of fluids properly to ever allow it to drain onto the ground.

 

[AlanB]

Sounds like your mind is made up.. so i won't waste time discussing the point.. except that to say that most of the people who classify waste oil as hazardous waste are: the government..

DOT lists waste oil as a hazardous waste. strikingly enough .. so does the EPA..

The epa has 4 big list.. F, K, P, and U.. and anything not on those lists that meets D001, D002, D003, D004-D043 specs also qualifies. ( 1, 3 and 4 especially )

Soundguy

Well, I started typing out a reply, but you know what soundguy, it is guys like you, who know half the truth, that keep things confused.

So do you treat your oil as Hazardous Waste? You could, but I bet you do not.

 

[Soundguy]

I take it to a collection facility where it is reclaimed.

Half truth? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what materials are in waste oil that can leach into the environment.

It's the guys that think it's ok to pour waste oil out on the ground that are the problem.. not those of us that call them out then catch flak for it.

On second read.. I will agree with Alan.. the haz waste issue is not so cut and defined. There are actually plenty of criteria to look at.. and most of the time waste oil is just that.. not hazardoues. There are times when it can or will be.
in t he end.. it's a moot point.. waste oil isn't suposed to go on the ground..

IE.. the real issue is that waste oil should not be dumped ont he ground.. the side issue redirect was the hazardous classification or no of waste oil. Fact is.. in some cases it is / can be classified. i'm not saying it is universal. Without reading thru line by line of most of section 260 thru 270 of the CFR.. it's a hair splitter as to what is and what isn't... depending on its composition.. etc.

Fact is.. there is no need to split hairs on this one.. it's a clear .. should / shouldn't do issue.

There are lots of things people get away with that they shouldn't do.. but it doesn't make that situation correct. In many cases..there can be criminal penalties for things you shouldn't do. I forget if it is ont he epa.. or the FL DEP website.. but they listed a few case studies of contractors that were found commiting various eco-crimes. The last one I read didn't involve waste oil.. but merely fuel oil. A contractor had directed his employees to spray fuel oil along curbs and fencelines as vegitation control. Worked great. Result were fines with more zeroes behind the dollar sign that I will probably make in my lifetime.. and plenty of time in jail for the people that did it. It's obvious that the gov't isn't going to go after every homeowner that saves some lawnmower drainings and pours them on ant mounds.. but the fact that they don't go after them doesn't make it a good idea. Petro products that show up where they shouldn't cause lots of problems... benzene is a great one... The company i work for has been involved in tank removal and dirt cleaning operations removing leaky gasolene tanks.. what a mess that was for the city.... They had to dig a test well there and monitor the ground water for years.

If ya like the way clean water tastes.. it's a no brainer... don't dump the stuf fin the environment. Ever read the warning ont he back of an oil jug.. something like prolonged contact with waste oil can cause cancer.. etc It doesn't take a chemical engineer to figure out that if you spread that contamination out to a very difuse level over a wide area.. that you are in effect exposing a large number of people to a small amount of contaminant that may not have an immediate effect... now.. bump that a few years down the road.. and then you get neat thing like cancer cluster sites... etc. It's sheer head-in-the-sand irresponsibility to think that anything positive happens when you don't put waste products in the proper place. Not to mention poor stewardship. The sad part is.. i should have to be saying this.. it should be common sense. What's even sadder is that I'm taking flak for it.. IE.. taking flak for point out that it is not a good idea to dump waste oil on the ground... ... nuff said..

California.. this is exactly what i dind't want to happen... That's why I'm dropping back to 'lurk' in this thread. It's nearly impossible to argue against the 'not me' or '1qt here and there won't hurt anything mentality'... I don't even know why i tried...

Soundguy

Soundguy

 

[AlanB]

Here is the 40 CFR reference (EPA rules if you will)

2005 CFR Title 40, Volume 26


For those that are interested.

Notice that USED OIL has it's very own section, and is handled specially unto itself. Notice also that it refers to when Used Oil becomes mixed with a Hazardous Waste and the problems that entails.



On Edit, I removed some inflamatory language from my post, and apologize. This is near and dear to my heart in several ways, and I got typing and not thinking enough. My apologies. I cannot remove earlier posts, so I left the basis there so folks can understand more and have some basis for more research.

I would like to point out that when you describe something as a "Hazardous Waste" that kind of "makes it so" in the eyes of the EPA and state agencies and requires some pretty expensive testing to make it fall back into the proper categories.

As soundguy stated though, the truth of where the discussion lies, is that it is not a good practice to dump oil on the ground.

In my work I deal with large and small spills constantly and the long term effects and treatmant of many past years of poor actions of folks.

In the FWIW column this is the website for what I do for a living

Fort Campbell Environmental Division

 

[RWEST]

Geeze!! And here I thought we'd just be talking about some new, possibly cost effective oil technology, that comes from a source that doesn't give the tree-huggers anything to complain about. Oh, wait. I forgot about the methane that flatulent cows generate.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the actual "green" guys' product. Seems like a neat idea, to me, anyway.