[Newsman]

Following a couple of threads the other day got me to thinking about what others do with their petroleum base effluent, cleaners etc. Tracing an oil leak it was suggested I use degreaser and then hose down the tractor. Spraying and washing various part leaves me with pails of stripper, carb cleaner, acetone etc.
Back when I was a youngster, (I'm 70) it wasn't uncommon for folks to dump waste oil on their dirt driveways to keep the dust down. Now the oil I collect I give to my auto mechanic you burns it in a waste oil furnace to heat his business.
But, does anyone take any special precautions when washing a tractor, engine or some other part with a petroleum based cleaner? Even the runoff from "Green" cleaners would have the oil residue in them. How much solvent do you collect and where do you dump it.:dunno:
I'm not the enviro police, but in my former like, (see screen name) I have seen people that have been seriously debilitated from MTBE gasoline additives in their well water. I have seen and photographed people turn on their faucet, fill a glass and light it with a match. There is an entire neighborhood that has been on bottled water for 15 years, ordered by the health dept due to dumping and runoffs from a nearby garage. Litigation dragged on, mostly trying to asses blame and decision to hook them up to town water system finally happened.
And yes, I have mixed oil with real old gas, (to reduce the flash point) and sometimes other stuff, when clearing land and burning brush.
But I ain't clearing any land anymore.
And the local county only has a hazard materials dump day once a year. So what do you folks do?
Thanks, MikeC:thanku:

 

[mrbeef]

Well here were are allowed 1 gallon of used oil a week. I dispose of most of my oil and oily residue that way. We have a waste recovery plant that burns trash to power the power plant and from what I understand that type stuff goes through that plant... Or to recycling.... But since the garbage company just throws the gallon in with the rest of the trash I assume it is burned.

Oily rags etc go the same place. Pretty convenient for me......... As for cleaning machines... I try to scrape up any crud that comes off and clean up any oily dirt... Other than that not much to do without spending a heap of money on a wash bay and oil/water separator????

 

[engine2quarters]

My town has a recycling facility that recycles/collects old oil, antifreeze, batteries, etc Most everything is sold off, hopefully at a small profit, to cover the running of the center. I had been giving my old oil to the local repair shop who would use it to heat the shop, but I don't get that much anymore.
As for oily rags, right in with the rest of the trash, to be hauled off to a burner plant.
Engine/chassis cleanings, I too try to scrap or wipe off as much as possible before hosing it down. Strongest cleaner I use is Simple Green, which isn't too bad. Most fluid runs to the side of my driveway, so it doesn't reach the street catch basins. Haven't damaged the lawn yet.
I try to recycle most everything I use. If it is metal, either to the recycle center or to the local metal guys. I take it apart and separate the materials: plastic/paper/glass/metal (copper/aluminum/brass I collect and cash in). My bolt/nut/screw collection is bigger than Lowes, by size, material and length.
Old gas goes into my walk behind rotary mower, NOT into my car or truck .
Sometimes, old oil is used to lube the cutting blades on the hedge clippers or bar chain oil in the old 'beeta' chainsaw. I use to useold oil in the pump primer on the fire truck.

 

[Tom-machinery-idiot]

I always try to do the responsible thing and protect my environment. I usually pour old engine oil onto a fire ant bed. Preferably while it's still hot.

 

[john9001]

At the dealership we had a bulk tank for used motor oil, I asked the guy who pumps out the tanks what they did with the oil, he said some is burned for heating and some is used to make asphalt. Do you know what they do with asphalt, they put it on the ground as paving.

 

[Tractor-Holic]

I rarely create enough used crankcase oil to make disposal a problem--I can haul it to the town DPW garage,where they burn it to heat their building with a waste oil heater,and I also have a large commercial greenhouse nearby that accepts waste oils,so getting rid of it isn't a big deal...
I do use drain oil for chain saw bar lube and to oil things like hinges and garage door rollers around the house too..when my truck was leaking oil rather quickly until I could do some crude repairs to its oil pan,I also used the drain oil to keep it full to prevent seizing it up..
I have also burned small amounts of used oil and oil filters in my garage's wood stove--with a hot wood fire going,it doesn't smoke or smell at all..

Old gas I dont get much of either,I only buy what I'll need for a particular job so I dont have it hanging around to go stale..what little I do end up with usually goes in my backyard fire pit,to get it lit easier..

I've never really worried about what little residue that gets washed off an engine,etc goes,I just do that in a spot where it wont accumulate and be a potential hazard to my well or anyone else's...I do not dump fuel on the ground or oil,I'd rather burn it or haul it away than do that..

I don't wash that many things off very often,and what little residue I create doing so,is practically nil compared to what gets spilled every day on the nearby highways from car crashes,leaky engines and transmissions,etc..not far away from my street,10,000 gallons of gasoline was spilled from a tanker truck,and many other fuel spills from heating oil and semi trucks have also occoured...


I think their is too much emphasis on environmental "damage" from petroleum ,when it came out of the ground to start with..
I have not "polluted" very much in my lifetime,I have tried not to be careless about spilling fuels and oil on the ground,even when I worked in a salvage yard and their attitude was "so what" if an engine or transmission peuked a bunch of fluid out during the removal process..

Look at what the EPA did in CO last week......and they are supposed to "protect" the environment ?...

 

[Tom-machinery-idiot]

Tractor-Holic you seem to echo pretty well how I feel about the subject. I know there are chemical additives in trace amounts. Large quantities concentrated in one spot isn't going to be good and should be avoided, but my layperson's reasoning is that used motor oil is basically oil and metal particles and possibly some gasoline (a refined oil product) and where did each of those items originate? In the ground.

 

[Tractor-Holic]

When I first read the title of this post--"what do you do with your waste products"..
My first thought was ..."I just flush"...

We think the earth gets polluted badly still,but I recall my father telling me back in the 30's when he was growing up it was a LOT worse--everyone just dumped used oil,chemicals,and whatever else they had to get rid of in rivers,vacant lots,etc..what gets me is many people who lived through the depression and lived in squalor,often in these "dump" areas,still somehow managed to survive and live to a ripe old age !..
I'm betting there is far less pollution today,than there was back then..
Imagine how much gunpowder and other chemicals are in the soil in places where world war 2's big battles were fought,and how much fuel,oil and weaponry ended up in the oceans ..

The earth is a good filter,from what I've heard and read,it can purify itself amazingly well..

When I worked in a junkyard,I was amazed at the amount of wildlife that lived there !--we had tons of squirrels,chipmonks,snakes,turtles,frogs,deer,rabbits,skunks,even "rare" salamanders and a few lizards ,that you would think would have been poisoned by the oils and gas,grease and other pollutants..those old cars provided a good refuge for vulnerable critters..we often felt bad when we'd move one,and find an animal had been killed in the process,or put out of a home..
I honestly can say there was way more wildlife in the junkyard ,than in my own thickly wooded back yard ..

 

[Newsman]

Thanks for the responses. Yes, I know what we all use to do, and sure folks are quick to blame any illness on various types of pollution, but I was just curious how you dispose of various fluids we use in our tractors. Like I said I recycle the oil to a guy that uses it for heat, and I store the other stuff till I can take it to the recycle facility. Asbestos comes from the ground, and when it is gotten rid of it is usually buried. But in between, those airborne fibers can reek havoc on your lungs. My buddy just passed the 10 yr mark on having a double lung transplant due to asbestosis.
I'm not trying to take a holier than thou attitude. I'm not the environmental police. Guess the question was triggered by the fact my daughter just had our first grandson, and while I was holding him the other day I was thinking about what the future hold for him. Like what it will be like showing him how to work on tractors and with tools in general. I was just curious.
Thanks again for the replies. MikeC

 

[GlenPettit]

Most of what we use does come from the ground, (but we have changed the chemistry on some products) . . . The sun, the weather and the earth (microbes) can convert most things back into safe stuff over time. The biggest problem is too much in a concentrated area and dumped too fast, not enough time to decompose.
The above comments have a lot of good suggestions, recycle if we can or take it to someone who can. Using oil for other purposes thins it out so the oil has less or no impact over time.
The problem has a lot less to do with us as individuals (if we use common sense) and a lot more with some Big Industry who are only concerned with profits and live/manage a 1,000 miles away;there are a lot of companies who do an excellent job protecting our environment and future, mainly because they are more local, live in the community and plan to stay there.

Note: California did a study on what happened to the rubber that wears off of tires, and dipped oil on the roads on the most heavily used highways; they found that they actually fed and helped grass grow along the highways which in-turn helped filter the exhaust & fuel, actually improving the air & ground. No rubber or oil residue found after 5 years (all of the trace additives were reduced and considered safe, like heavy metals).

 

[john9001]

I think most places that sell oil will now take waste oil also old batteries.

 

[Boyd]

County recycling place is open 2-3 days a week. Between cleaning in my storage, and the basement I have half a small trailer load to bring it. It'll happen after I 1st haul in all of my scrap.

 

[shallowwatersailor]

I'm lucky that I live about 4 miles from my county's transfer station. They take everything that is hazardous.

 

[Nouveau Redneck]

When I was a kid, a man who lived across the street changed his own oil on his car in his driveway, and he would put the old oil in a bucket and tell his son to go into the woods at the end of the street with a shovel and the bucket and dig a hole, pour the oil in and cover the hole back up. They did this a couple of times a year over 15 or 20 years, and then the man passed away and his family moved away. Several years later the property with the woods on it was converted to a park/playground, and as soon as they started moving the dirt around for that project the oil started to seep to the surface. The local government had to spend quite a bit to have that oil contaminated dirt removed and cleaned up according to EPA specifications. It wasn't a large enough quantity to be considered a superfund site, so they didn't get any federal assistance, so the local citizens tax money was used when it could have been used for better things.

 

[bhayden]

my layperson's reasoning is that used motor oil is basically oil and metal particles and possibly some gasoline (a refined oil product) and where did each of those items originate? In the ground.

It came from "in" the ground, not "on" the ground. A typical oil well is a mile deep. That's well below the water table. Where I live all of the run off be it streams or ground water ends up flowing into streams and rivers that eventually end up in Lake Washington and the Puget Sound. All this stuff in small amounts gets concentrated via the food chain and then comes back to us packaged as Salmon.

Some spillage/leakage etc. is unavoidable and it may seem like what you're dumping is a drop in the bucket but it really requires a change in mindset to turn the tide on what we've been doing to the environment for the last 100+ years. A county transfer station should have a hazardous waste disposal site and their website, or that of your refuse hauler should be able to direct you to how and where to dispose of this stuff.

As far as cleaning and engine, on a car the thing to do is take it to a car wash. At least in Washington they they are all required to have filtration systems and skimmers set-up. That might not be practical with a tractor but they might be willing to let you dump a few buckets of contaminated cleaning water. :dunno:

 

[Tom-machinery-idiot]

I was watching this thread waiting for that. Took way longer than expected.

 

[Boyd]

It just makes sense to be responsible to recycle chemicals and other materials. One of my friends lives in an area in which the groundwater is contaminated by a chemical that was used to clean aircraft engine parts. The government delivers drinking water to this area. Well water needs to be filtered very well before drinking it.

 

[Tom-machinery-idiot]

I believe I know what chemical you're talking about. We used it at General Dynamics in F-16 and F-111 production. It was a solvent, can't remember what we called it but it was a Freon product with an actual R number. Would solve with just about anything but evaporate very quickly. There was a gutter with flowing "water" exiting the plant and dumping into a drainage ditch. GDFW is on the banks of Lake Worth.

 

[bhayden]

A machinist friend of mine did an apprenticeship a Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS). They handed out aerosol cans of Freon (R22) no questions asked for cleaning anything and everything. I think more cans went home in lunchboxes to clean carburetors than were used on the ships. I still have a can of it sitting in my garage :hide:

I don't see how this could be the culprit in ground water contamination though because like you said it evaporates completely and almost instantaneously. Banning CFC's was a good thing 'cause it really was making a hole in the ozone layer. But R22 as a refrigerant got a bit of a bum rap in that the major culprit was all the CFC's being used as a propellant in cans of stuff like underarm deodorant. Trichloroethylene, or TCE is one solvent named in conjunction with contamination from jet engine cleaning. Probably the biggest source of contaminated ground water is polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB). Really nasty stuff :eck34:

 

[Boyd]

TCE is the chemical in the ground below my friends land. There is a small airport 1.5 miles west of his house. The area of contaminated groundwater starts around this airport and flows underground to the east into a river.