Waste Oil

   / Waste Oil #31  
Stan B said:
automotive industry engineering told me that antifreeze is OK to dump into the municipal sanitary sewer system.
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He might have been pulling your chain:
Antifreeze decomposition products includes acids. Acids break down in the environment but in the vehicle they corrode the cooling system. And while in the engine it can be contaminated with traces of fuel, metal particles, grit, benzene, lead and other things so it can be classed as hazardous waste.

All by itself, it'll break down in the environment over a period of a few weeks. However the crap in used antifreeze may not.
 
   / Waste Oil #33  
John0829 said:
Many years ago it was a common practice to put waste oil on gravel roads to keep the dust down. Trucks with spray bars would collect the oil from all the surrounding service stations/shops and oil down the county roads every year.
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They used to do this here in Maine. Now they use salt to cut down the dust in dirt roads. It is not done much - but I saw one doing it a couple weeks ago. Most roads are hot-topped now, but some back farm roads get it done.

From Aroostook County - the largest county East of the Mississippi.
 
   / Waste Oil #34  
Oaktree said:
I've heard of that being done, but don't think I've ever actually seen it.
Most states have laws to the effect that if you sell oil you need to take used oil for recycle, but as you noted it doesn't always work that way in practice. I can't imagine anyone at Walmart, Rite Aid or Dollar General having any idea what to do with it. There's an O'Reillys/VIP about 20 mi. away that takes it with no problems...the town is the nearest retail center, so I'm there at least once a week anyway.
As Willly noted, I'll sometimes use old oil for lubing non-critical stuff, as an accellerant when starting a bonfire, etc. but that doesn't account for much. Tried using it as bar oil in a chainsaw many years ago, that didn't work out so well... :oops:

No idea where I'd get rid of old antifreeze. Where I used to live the town would have a hazardous waste day at the dump/transfer station once a year, but they don't seem to do that here. Fortunately, doesn't need to be changed that often so I'll just have a mechanic do it and let him worry about disposal.
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Texas doesn’t require oil sellers to take used oil, I checked.
 
   / Waste Oil #35  
We went in to our mining claim in the Sierras - 20 miles on logging trails that are maintained only when there is an active logging contract - for 4th of July three day weekend.

&$@!! loggers had heavily oiled the haul road before the weekend with something biologically acceptable to the Forest Service, probably corn oil. It mixed with the dust and made a 3 inch slippery layer that gummed up the cars same as filling the fenders with peanut butter. Bastards!!!
 
   / Waste Oil #36  
When I owned a house in town the new neighour was a Mechanic working from home without proper aprovals not that it was a problem,what he did with his waste oil was, He poured it along the fence line on his side to kill the weeds under the fence, When it rained my concrete drive way had an oil slick on it and the lawn started to die off I told him to stop doing it, and was told to shove it,so I got on to the local council that ordered him to stop this practice in writing, he ignored this notice for another year or so when my concrete drive was badly stained and the lawn died off completly I contacted the council again the inspector came out and issued another notice, which he got upset and abusive over, I then got in contact with the EPA ,they did an inspection across my property and the storm water sump out in the street.
The EPA took him to court he was fined $3k and was ordered to clean up all traces of oil on my property which included ripping up the concrete drive 38ft long x 10 ft wide and replacing it, it was that badly stained nothing would get the stains out, removing all the cntaminated soil and replacing it using an approved contractor, it ended up costing him just over $17000 on my property, he tried to sell his property to get out of it, but the EPA and council would not allow the transfer of titles to the new owner until the clean up on both properties was signed off , It cost him a total of $23000 and took eighteen months of him trying to wiggle out of it, when the final inspection was done the EPA insisted the five foot pailing fence all 260 ft which was removed for the clean up and then put up again had to be replaced with a new fence because of the unsightly oil soaked contaminated pailings.
That happened 21 years ago, it went on for over three years to resolve.
I was not living there full time, but there was also the strong smell of oil after rain and in the hotter months.
 
   / Waste Oil #38  
manzer7 said:
They used to do this here in Maine. Now they use salt to cut down the dust in dirt roads. It is not done much - but I saw one doing it a couple weeks ago. Most roads are hot-topped now, but some back farm roads get it done.
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When I was growing up, the town used to put calcium chloride on the dirt roads to keep the dust down. Haven't seen that done in many years, town I live in now doesn't do anything.
 
   / Waste Oil #39  
Oaktree said:
When I was growing up, the town used to put calcium chloride on the dirt roads to keep the dust down. Haven't seen that done in many years, town I live in now doesn't do anything.
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I used to put calcium on my 1.25 mile private road. The surface was red shale and dusted badly. It got to the point where we couldn't leave the windows open because the red dust would get into everything. The calcium worked well until the EPA banned the practice in our area due to storm water runoff.

I eventually put down a bluestone gravel overlay which helped considerably. There is still some dust but not nearly as much. It's also gray instead of red and doesn't show up on the carpet. :)
 
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