What Happens To Used Motor Oil?

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Just curious - how do they recycle used motor oil? Is the old oil is used to create new motor oil, roofing tar, asphault for roads, etc??

[ June 30, 2003, 05:42 PM: Message edited by: DockHoliday ]
 
Starting next oil change, I'll be dumping half a gallon in the fuel tank every fill up. That ought to get rid of the 3 gallons in 3 months. Cummins says up to 5% is OK, I'll be around 2%.
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quote:

Originally posted by mrchecker:
Starting next oil change, I'll be dumping half a gallon in the fuel tank every fill up. That ought to get rid of the 3 gallons in 3 months. Cummins says up to 5% is OK, I'll be around 2%.
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Well, that should give you all the combustion chamber lubrication you'll ever need.
 
Ok if you look at the site RussellA listed, one of the blenders is Chevron. No, I'm not going there, you know what I mean.

Has anyone done a VOA or UOA on these rerefined oils? After all that hydrotreating, maybe they get them to be a GroupIII or II+?
 
quote:

Originally posted by cangreylegend:
Ok if you look at the site RussellA listed, one of the blenders is Chevron. No, I'm not going there, you know what I mean.

Has anyone done a VOA or UOA on these rerefined oils? After all that hydrotreating, maybe they get them to be a GroupIII or II+?


Oh yeah...let's go there. So are you saying that those who buy Chevron "might" be using recycled oils?? I love controversy you know.
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Now, what happenes to all the additives? Do they get filtered out when being recycled? How do they separate the different groups?
 
I imagine a lot of used oil goes into heating auto service centers. Try entering "waste oil heaters" into google, you'll get a lot of hits on manufacturers of waste oil heaters.
 
I've got 30 gallons in my storage building if anyone wants it. Mostly Havoline but some Delo400. I have a hard time getting to the recycle tank.
 
A lot of government agencies use re-refined motor oil.The Post Office is one for example.They are required to recycle as much of everything as possible.The re-refined oil looks like regular oil,and cleans pretty well.I don't know who the Post Office gets the oil from.
 
I wonder what happens when there is oil contaminated with antifreeze. btw, where does everyone recycle their antifreeze? I have 9 gallons of antifreeze that I need to dispose of
 
WOW!!!
Go here and see what the "Big Three" and Mercedes-Benz have to say about recycled motor oil. Mercedes-Benz even claims that they have used re-refined oil as "Factory fill" in their new passenger cars.
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I guess it really isn't that bad.
Rick
 
Most used motor oil is blended into heavy fuel oil and burned in industrial or marine boilers and very large diesel engines burning heavy fuel.

I'm not sure of the virtue of rerefining oil...if the oil isn't used with boiler fuel or asphalt plants, more virgin heavy oil will be needed. Where's the savings?

My question about the rerefining process is whether they can "un-oxidize" oxidized motor oil? If not, then they're ending up with a very low grade base oil which results in oil that is at the floor of the API specs.

Mercedes didn't say just where they used rerefined oil...door hinges?...undercoating?


Ken

[ July 01, 2003, 01:35 AM: Message edited by: Ken2 ]
 
I'd say used motor oil is a lot cleaner than
crude oil.

Yesterday, I put some Wal Mart Tech 2000 10w30 in
my car, and want to do my first UOA on that
stuff. This is Safety Kleen recycled oil from
Wal Mart Canada. I'm using their 20w50 in my
lawnmower, and its drain plug magnet is
collecting minimal black iron sludge buildup,
similar to Mobil1 15w50.

Yes, I have a magnetic drain plug in my lawnmower,
and I just drilled two holes and installed a pair
of cylindrical rare earth magnets in my car's
drain plug, with closely spaced north and south
poles.
 
Cutehumor,
I had a 5 gallon container of used coolant that I had to recylce recently. My town dump would not take it. A call to the county clerk didn't produce results, the environmental officer said something along the lines of "yeah, I wish we could take it". A call to a local garage got me the response, "yep, I'll take it for $1.50 a gallon"...
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So I called a large, well known remediation company. They would have been happy to send a truck out to pick up all of the 55 gallon drums of used coolant I had...when I told her I only had 5 gallons, she said that wouldn't be cost effective for me...ya, I know that. What I did find interesting, was that she said they pick up oil and coolant at the same time and the truck that carries them mixes them together. Then there was some jibber jabber about how the chemicals burn off at different temperatures.
So what I've been doing now is mixing the two together in the same container. I'll only put in a little coolant per 5 gallons of oil...but if it's good enough for the big companies, I don't see why I can't do the same thing.
I can't pour the stuff on the ground as I have a well. I have heard that if you live in a big city you can dispose of used coolant down the drain...I guess "dilution is the pollution solution"
Bogatyr
 
I can't pour the stuff on the ground as I have a well. I have heard that if you live in a big city you can dispose of used coolant down the drain...I guess "dilution is the pollution solution"
Bogatyr [/quotes]

Gets rid of the strays and the rat problem in the sewers.
 
In most locales, so long as you are connected to a public wastewater treatment plant, you can safely dispose of used antifreeze down the drain. It gets digested at the treatment plant.

Its a no-no if you are on a septic system or small neighborhood treatment facility.

Check with local authorities first!
 
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