Used Oil

[StarChaser]

Google BioDiesel in your area. The ones around my area will come and get fuel oil, motor oil, and of course food oils. Its worth a shot if nothing else.

 

[Lepke]

The small centrifuges that get their spin from oil pressure are only slightly better than some bypass filters. Some other bypass filters do a better job. You need high rpms to separate out the debris and water. And that takes a motor spinning the bowl.

 

[Simi 60]

Have heard of but not tried, of used oil added to main tank.
I'm guessing 30 litres of old oil added to several thousand litres of diesel would make f all difference,, googlies would be filtered out by 1000fg and would be less of a problem than having dodgy o rings in deck fillers or a load of "bad" fuel.

 

[Bacchus]

I'm in the NE and have 2 private / independent truck auto repair shops that use and welcome used oil. I would identify likely candidates and call or stop by vs waiting to have them respond to your ad. There may be some restrictions on where their supply comes from... possibly restricted to their own waste? Or maybe they just don't need or want to get into any potential hassle with responding to the ad. I ask in person... face to face w the owner... they have even taken and blended in small qty of very old gasoline but I'm sure they wouldn't advertise that... and I won't repeat that locally or discuss who / where they are.
I don't believe in my area that anyone can buy a waste oil burner start collecting and burning it for heat. I think its restricted to those w a need to dispose of lg qty of oil as a result of their business...
I may be wrong on that perception.

 

[FF]

"Have heard of but not tried, of used oil added to main tank."


Detroit used to have a couple of pages of photos of engine damage caused by burning old lube oil on their site.

 

[ctjstr]

lots of good ideas here, thanks. The restaurant next to my office recycles their nasty cooking oil, so I'll ask that company. I used to have a waste oil heater..two shops ago. I'm just moving my home and was trying to avoid moving 4 55 gallon drums, but I may be faced with that..then get rid of it 5 gallons at a time...ick. I have a forklift and big trailer, so moving it is no problem.

I think the real solution will be to store it, and then add a clause in my will, something like... "And to Andrew ______________, the nastiest lawyer in our bar association, I hereby leave the four barrels of my finest home made wine. It will be delivered for you at no charge on the day after my funeral."

 

[Simi 60]

The small centrifuges that get their spin from oil pressure are only slightly better than some bypass filters. Some other bypass filters do a better job. You need high rpms to separate out the debris and water. And that takes a motor spinning the bowl.

]

These sort of things?

https://www.ebay.com/bhp/oil-centrifuge

 

[O C Diver]

lots of good ideas here, thanks. The restaurant next to my office recycles their nasty cooking oil, so I'll ask that company. I used to have a waste oil heater..two shops ago. I'm just moving my home and was trying to avoid moving 4 55 gallon drums, but I may be faced with that..then get rid of it 5 gallons at a time...ick. I have a forklift and big trailer, so moving it is no problem.

Well, if you can put them horizontally on 2 pallets and deliver them ready to drain with spigots, I would think you should have a much easier time getting rid of the oil into somebody's storage tank.

Ted

 

[sbu22]

Right now you believe it is just used motor oil. An analysis might indicate it contains PCB's. You then have documented evidence that you have a highly toxic product. You must now dispose of it properly by contacting and paying an environmental cleanup co.

Or... you could just go to walmart and buy a bunch of 5 gal gas containers. Decant the oil and then bring it to local town recycle day.

SoWhat – Afraid you don’t get it. The PCB test suggestion is to ease dealing with a legit recycler.

First, unless he’s a would-be environmental felon and scamming us, the OP has what’s known in the trade as “process knowledge”. The regulated waste reuse/recycle relies on a somewhat objective evaluation of the process (food service, nuclear weapons manufacture, auto service, etc. etc.) that generated the waste. Otherwise, we’d be testing every wadded up hamburger wrapper for the concentrations of each of the estimated 50,000+ chemical compounds known to man (not counting radioactive isotopes). The OP has process knowledge that its junk lube oil from his boats and other implements. Additionally (you may have heard this before) ignorance of the law is no excuse. If the OP has reason to think the oil is contaminated or potentially contaminated, he needs to identify it as such.

Secondly, a reuse/recycler knows through experience, that PCBs are the most likely regulated contaminant in used oil. Not because somebody is trying to get away with something, but simply because a substantial number of incidents have occurred where older used hydraulic oil (car lifts, elevators, industrial high temp/pressure applications, etc.) had PCB additives. These incidents are decreasing with time, but the experience is still burned into the corporate memory of a lot of entities in the trade.

Third, the suggestion that the OP buy some 5 gallon containers and try to foist it off on the local recycle day is lame, at best. My firm has helped with these drives for many years. If (I should say when) some guy shows up with a pickup load (say several hundred gallons like the OP has) of junk oil, it will attract attention. Then one of my guys will apply a field PCB test. Depending on results, we will direct him to a legit recycler or walk him through the legit disposal steps if its contaminated material. If it’s a known shady promiscuous disposer (they exist), we’ll ask the detail police officer to hold him up for a few minutes while we advise the state hazardous waste division with attendant consequences if its regulated material.

The local recycle drives are intended to help people who are trying to get rid of their old paint, lube oil, and wastes when they clean out the garage – not to recycle on a volume/commercial basis.

 

[Sharpseadog]

I've run into an interesting problem. For decades, I've saved my used motor oil in 55 gallon drums. Used to be, if you had 200 gallons, the distributors would actually come, drain the barrels and pay you. Not a lot, but enough. Then about ten years ago, they stopped paying, but would still come and pump the barrels....for free.

I began calling around a week or so ago, and holy buckets...I'm being quoted upwards of 700 bucks to come and pump the barrels. I've even offered to deliver the barrels, but no luck.

Its funny that if you have 5 gallons or less, lots of places will take it, but not if you have it by the barrel.

So, any thoughts about who might want a bunch of oil? I put an add on Craigs List to see if any of the guys with oil burning heaters wanted it....but no luck so far. I'm certainly not interested in dumping it all in to 5 gallon jugs and stopping at O'Reiley's every day on the way home from work.

Hell...I'm a democrat in a liberal state and you'd think all the government folks would be waiting in line to hug me for being in favor of and practicing conservation....but nah...

In NW WA there are several steam launches, and at least one that I know of burns waste motor oil for fuel. [emoji924][emoji196]

 

[Ski in NC]

What harm do PCB's do if present in the waste oil stream? Not being snarky, just ignorant.

 

[Giggitoni]

What harm do PCB's do if present in the waste oil stream? Not being snarky, just ignorant.

PCBs are an EPA regulated waste. They are a probable human carcinogen.

 

[Chrisjs]

Must admit to being a bit baffled as to why anyone would choose voluntarily to accumulate 55 gallons of used engine oil unless directly involved in servicing oil exchanges commercially.

 

[Simi 60]

Must admit to being a bit baffled as to why anyone would choose voluntarily to accumulate 55 gallons of used engine oil unless directly involved in servicing oil exchanges commercially.

Won't take much for some of us.
Single oil change is 10 gallons and full time cruiser so no where to dump.
Won't take long before I have the same problem.

 

[Comodave]

In response to #43. Long long time ago we lived on a dirt road. We kept a 55 gallon drum to collect oil that we spread on the dirt road to keep dust down. It worked very well. Then as it became apparent that was a bad environmental solution to the dust it was outlawed and we were stuck with a drum of oil. We had to get rid of it by the 5 gallon method of taking it to an auto parts store for disposal.

 

[dhays]

Must admit to being a bit baffled as to why anyone would choose voluntarily to accumulate 55 gallons of used engine oil unless directly involved in servicing oil exchanges commercially.

I think the OP described why in his first post. By accumulating a large enough amount, he could sell his used oil. That is a pretty good reason to me. Then he found he couldn’t sell it, but it was probably still easier to just store it until he had enough to make it worthwhile for a recycler to come and pick up. Unfortunately, the market has changed since the last time, which has led to his understandable dilemma.

 

[sbu22]

Ski - the usual array of carcenogeity, toxicity that varies greatly with exposure. In the case of dioxins ( of which PCB is a part), there is unfortunately a good bit of human exposure data. PCB also produces very toxic compounds in combustion products. Lots of firemen at transformer fires found out the hard way.

Times Beach, MO was bulldozed in the 80s after it's gravel streets were oiled for dust suppression using used motor oil mixed with dioxins rich chemical process waste. Dead livestock, wildlife, and injured people.

 

[BruceK]

I think the OP described why in his first post. By accumulating a large enough amount, he could sell his used oil. That is a pretty good reason to me. Then he found he couldn’t sell it, but it was probably still easier to just store it until he had enough to make it worthwhile for a recycler to come and pick up. Unfortunately, the market has changed since the last time, which has led to his understandable dilemma.

It might become more valuable depending how world oil supply pans out.

 

[FF]

"It might become more valuable depending how world oil supply pans out."


"Peak oil" is a political delusion of the past.

Many marinas and boat yards have a 200-400g waste oil tank that is used to accept used oil.
Traveling dumping 8 gal has not been a hassle , although not every marina has the facility.

 

[catalinajack]

"It might become more valuable depending how world oil supply pans out."


"Peak oil" is a political delusion of the past.

Many marinas and boat yards have a 200-400g waste oil tank that is used to accept used oil.
Traveling dumping 8 gal has not been a hassle , although not every marina has the facility.

A political delusion of the past? Is it reasonable to conclude that the earth does not have a finite supply of oil? At some point, the oil supply will be fully consumed. Then what. Oil is essential to much more than internal combustion engines. Think plastic folks. No oil, no plastics. To my mind, we need to conserve the finite supply of oil for products other than gasoline and diesel fuel.

 

[psneeld]

The million dollar question is will we run out of oil before other "life as we know it" endings occur?


Already... every oil reserve estimate ever made has been incorrect and new tech changes by the day so that oil may last longer than needed.



Concern versus worry separates thinkers from doomsdayists.

 

[sunchaser]

What harm do PCB's do if present in the waste oil stream? Not being snarky, just ignorant.

Yes PCBs have been proven deadly. PCBs for years were added to transformer oil to improve cooling and longevity. When oils were changed waste haulers mixed transformer oil with other lubricants to reformulate, ignorant of PCB’s soon to be revealed sad tale.

GE was one of the primary users of PCB transformer oil. Their large plant in the Eastern US dumped product into a nearby river. Families and livestock drawing downstream waters suffered mightily vs their upstream neighbors. PCBs settled to the river bottom eventually requiring cleanup and huge funding.

In the 1980s several large mining operations where I worked spent large sums disposing of transformer oil that were PCB laden. Other industries were so affected.

This hit nuclear power plant transformers too Ski. GE covered costs for the nuclear plants because chain of title was well documented with GE and Westinghouse reactors. Not so in businesses where I worked where refurbished transformers were commonplace by 3rd party vendors.

Movies made, books written, lives lost and waters polluted for a very long time. Decades later the effects are still being felt in countries where waste oil use is loosely regulated.

BTW, a place I worked sold waste diesel oil to Russell Bliss who then spread some on the Times Beach roads and other places too. Russ was a nice guy caught in the middle but negligent to a degree. The counties he sold to purchased at their own contractual risk, but gained prosecutorial release.

 

[sunchaser]

A political delusion of the past? Is it reasonable to conclude that the earth does not have a finite supply of oil? At some point, the oil supply will be fully consumed. Then what. Oil is essential to much more than internal combustion engines. Think plastic folks. No oil, no plastics. To my mind, we need to conserve the finite supply of oil for products other than gasoline and diesel fuel.

Oil is not in short supply. Peak oil a now proven myth. One can always state oil is short term finite, as did Jimmy Carter, but the oil geologists well know otherwise.

 

[ctjstr]

ah...i'm not aware of any pcb's sneaking in to my used oil. The only contaminate might be a wee bit of nitromethane, which might make it work better in waste oil heaters...

 

[Lepke]

These sort of things?

Shop by Category | eBay

Yeah. Before I bought my current centrifuge, I looked into these. They do remove debris, but only slightly better than some bypass filters. And a filter just gets changed, you don't have to scrape out the bowl. The one shown is designed to be mounted on one engine and run when ever there is oil pressure. The higher the pressure, the faster it turns and removes more and smaller debris. But it's too slow. Mine made by high speed WVO centrifuges, Algae centrifuge, Oil Centrifuge, oil transfer pumps and drum heaters. - US Filtermaxx does a faster, better job. Before choosing I read several blogs. Several had been using the one in the pic and changed to my type. Comments were uniform in stating theusfiltermax removed much more debris in 10% of the time the smaller one.
My use of bypass filters goes back to the Frantz toilet paper oil filter in the 1960s. Since then I've used several brands and also centrifuges on ships and tugs. For me, super clean oil has saved many thousands of $ in repairs and early rebuilds compared to other engines of the same brand used by others.
On the burning oil in diesel subject, it's common in larger diesels to add filtered waste oil to diesel. I use to ad 1 gallon per 100, but many used much lower ratios. Some people run 100% waste oil. Pic shows debris removed from oil already filtered to 10 microns. Check out Black Oil on the usfiltermax site.

 

[SoWhat]

The local recycle drives are intended to help people who are trying to get rid of their old paint, lube oil, and wastes when they clean out the garage – not to recycle on a volume/commercial basis.

OP has no expert knowledge of what used motor oil contains. He is obligated to identify it as used motor oil. Nothing more.

OP is not a commercial scammer. He stored oil in a good faith effort to dispose of it in a way he thought feasible. He could have brought the used oil to a local recycle facility as he changed the oil. He still has that option.

Showing up with 20 five gallon containers might be an issue. A call to his local DPW would determine how much they will allow.

 

[Chrisjs]

Many (all?) local authorities in Massachusetts will accept used motor oil and antifreeze. Presumably it gets recycled somehow. Also, it seems many stores (eg Walmart, Autozone) will also take back used oil if they sell the new oil. Then also some marinas.
No need to accumulate multiple oil change quantities in a barrel.
55 gallons must equal at least 5 oil changes, or over a 1,000 engine hours.
Just asking for trouble IMO.

 

[Woodland Hills]

Autozone in St Pete let me dump five 5 gallon pails. I just called up and asked if they had room in their tank..... I changed the oil on a pair of 12v71’s and TwinDisc gearboxes.

Call around and see who will take it.

 

[DD788Snipe]

I was going to equate, “democrat in a liberal state” to the problem you’re having, but I won’t go there!

NWSeadog has it right. Disposal facilities assume your drum is full of unknown hazardous waste other than used engine oil. Therefore, it needs extensive analysis and a report from a certified analytical laboratory. Hence the high cost. Dispose of your used oil slowly to avoid charges.

I’m in the business of cleaning up hazmat spills caused by the trucking and transportation industry. So don’t make fun of my livelihood !

Just the other day, the news on TV reported the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, that have been an active oil seep for thousands of years, was acting up. Seems that oil and asphalt is seeping up in an adjacent parking lot across the street from the tar pits. Los Angeles County Department of Health tells us to “move along”, the petroleum oil and natural asphalt is harmless.

The same health department orders our clients to remediate the same material to very difficult-to-achieve standards!

Follow the dollars...

Exactly. Too many regulations. Don't get me started.

 

[catalinajack]

Oil is not in short supply. Peak oil a now proven myth. One can always state oil is short term finite, as did Jimmy Carter, but the oil geologists well know otherwise.

I did not say oil is in short supply. I did say that it would someday run out, date unknown, but, indeed, it will run out. Should those alive today, young and old, worry about that? I don't know. What I do think is that, at some point in the future, oil will become dear.