Disposing Of Used Oil Properly – How To Not Harm The Environment

How To Dispose Of Hazardous Waste Without Harming The Environment

You should never place hazardous waste in your home garbage for disposal or pour it down the drain or into your backyard. You need to take the time and research the best way to dispose of the toxic fluids and materials that you have. This will save you money as you will not be fined and you will not harm the environment. Approximately 750 million gallons of used motor oil is recycled each year and it will only take 1 gallon of this oil to contaminate a million gallons of groundwater.

What You Need To Do

It is important to note that recycling laws and practices will vary across the country. The mix of garage cleanup items could be picked up in certain areas, but there are others where this is not possible. You need to get a printout which details the recycling practices in your area from the Department of Public Works. There are some items, like paint, which could be picked up curbside on special days and you need to be aware of this. Of course, there are some counties that make this more difficult. There is one county that only takes oil-based paints on one day at one site every other month between the hours of 9 and 5. This means that ordinary people with a traditional job will not have many options. This is why you have to research your options and see what you can do about the leftover materials generated from working on your car or motorcycle. The brake fluid and other materials can be left to dry out in a pan of cat litter. You should not poison the dog or burn down the house. Draining your filter overnight will also reduce the amount of oil that will eventually land up in the landfill.

Used Oil And Filters

The used oil should be kept in an oil drain pan which has a tight-fitting lid until you are ready to deal with this. These pans ensure that you will only have to handle the oil after every other oil change. The pan will also have a grate which holds the filter allowing it to drain completely. You should allow it to drain for several house or overnight. Used filters will need to be crushed or punctured in commercial shops to ensure that they drain. When it is time to handle the used oil, you should decant it into clean and dry plastic bottles such as empty milk jugs. You should then label them as used engine oil. You can buy oil in gallon jugs and you should look at doing this because it makes it easy to reuse the containers. This is a better size to buy than single quarts. In most states, any shop that completes oil changes is required to take back small quantities of used oil from their customers. The used oil will be recycled back into other products or it is burnt in special furnaces. If you are going to buy motor oil in quarts, you need to ensure that the last few drops are drained from the plastic quart bottles. To do this, you can set up a rig which holds the bottle upside down over another bottle for a prolonged period of time. Over time, you will find that you could be getting a couple of fingers of oil from this. You should save this oil for topping off the lawnmower or other purposes. The completely empty plastic bottles can then be placed in household recycling without contaminating the whole recycling infrastructure.

 

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