Print

Email

Click on a thumbnail to see the full-size image

What to do with it now? You know you should recyc...

Not the best method of used oil disposal...Waste ...

Proper Oil Recycling Techniques are Good for Business, Environment

When you live in rural America, things are a bit different than being in a major metropolitan city. And having lived in both, my perspectives have changed.

In the city, most things are in close proximity, whether it’s the grocery store, cleaners, restaurants or even a gas station or oil change facility. Get out into the country, though, and no matter what you want you are going to have to drive a bit to get there.

Similarly, practices are a bit different in the wide open spaces and especially when it comes to the decision about what to do with the used engine oil in your shop.

Let’s start with some facts. The EPA estimates that improper dumping of the used oil from a single oil change can disrupt operations at water treatment facilities and contaminate a million gallons of fresh water. That’s enough water for 50 people for a year. That’s in the city.

In the country, oil dumped on the ground can permeate the soil and contaminate ground water resources. I’ve heard some people say that it’s great for fence lines. Some think that putting it into a sealed container and putting it in the trash is OK. However, landfills can leach into ground water as well. Lets put out a few ground rules to the used oil handling process:

• Store your used motor oil in a clean plastic container with a lid. Most oil can be purchased today in 4-6 quart containers that you can pour your drain oil into.

• Avoid any containers that once contained bleach, cleaners or other chemicals, and never even think of mixing motor oil with any of these substances.

• Do not mix used motor oil with brake or transmission fluid and/or coolant.

• Your oil filter has oil in it, too. Punch a hole in it and let it drain for 12-24 hours before disposing.

• Find an oil recycling center near you. That can be your local parts store, quick lube etc. You can go to www.earth911.com to find one nearest to you

• Over 240 million gallons of used oil are improperly disposed of nationally each year, equivalent to 24 Exxon Valdez spills.

The big question of course, is “Okay, I’m recycling my oil – what happens to it?” It’s impossible these days to talk about used oil without addressing the rerefined and recycled topic. There are a number of economic, environmental and technical reasons why rerefined oil is slowly gaining a share of the lubricating oil market in the United States. Rerefined lubricating products are often competitively priced, meet demands of environmentally concerned consumers and achieve the same quality standards as new oil manufactured from crude. Federal, state and local governments, the U.S. Postal Service and many private companies are using rerefined lubricants in a range of vehicles – from passenger cars to heavy equipment vehicles.

Lubricating oils made from rerefined base stocks must undergo the same testing and meet the same standards as those from new base stock in order to receive the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) certification mark of approval. Vehicle and engine manufacturers such as Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, Mercedes Benz, and Detroit Diesel have issued warranty statements that allow the use of rerefined oil as long as it meets API standards.

According to the National Recycling Coalition’s “Buy Recycled Business Alliance,” (www.nrc-recycle.org) if all Americans collected used oil for rerefining, it would keep 35 million cars running smoothly for a year, reduce dependence on foreign oil, provide jobs for Americans and reduce our trade deficit by $150 million.

The Mohawk rerefining process is the only process to date that produces lubricants which meet American Petroleum Institute standards. This process is used by three rerefining companies in the U.S. and Canada. The Mohawk process employs five steps including pre-treatment, distillation of water and light hydrocarbons, distillation of diesel fuel, distillation of asphalt flux and hydrofinishing.

Perhaps obviously, the process is more complicated than we have room for here but I recommend that you Google/Bing the process. There are some great animated links on the Web worth seeing. Safety-Kleen is the largest producer of rerefined oil in the US, to the tune of some 3,400 gallons per day.

Rerefined oil has to meet the same standards as virgin oil if the manufacturer is licensed by the American Petroleum Institute and displays the API donut symbol or the ILSAC starburst symbol. Rerefined oil products are subject to the same stringent refining, compounding, and performance standards that apply to virgin oil products. All API licensed oils, whether from rerefined or crude base stocks, must pass the same cold start and pumpability tests, rust and corrosion tests, engine wear tests, high temperature thickening tests, deposit tests and phosphorous tests.

Lubricating oils contain base stock and up to 20 percent additives to inhibit oxidation and degradation, improve viscosity, prevent foaming and provide fire retardation. Blenders use the rerefined base stock just as they do virgin base stock, with the same additive packages, when they prepare lubricating oils to meet specifications. Some common lubricating oils in the consumer market contain rerefined oil whether or not the label identifies it. Sixty-five percent of a gallon of used oil becomes a rerefined base stock. The remainder is used as an asphalt extender or as supplementary fuel.

What then are the down sides/concerns to rerefined oils? Variation in used oil feedstock quality and levels of contamination can lead to “batch to batch” inconsistency among re-refined base oils. Some re-refined oils are not as “pure” as virgin base oils, and their use could impact product quality. This in turn could impact fuel efficiency, as one of the best ways to ensure energy efficiency in automotive and industrial fuel use is to use high quality lubricants that improve fuel consumption.

Remember, the base oil stocks need to meet the recommendations of API and ILSAC. It is the additive packages in each particular blend of oil that has the most impact on how an oil interacts with an engine.

Whether the environmental impact of re-refining is less than that of burning processed used oil as fuel or producing virgin base oil is the subject of considerable research and debate. At this point, no widely agreed-upon long term methodology for measuring this impact has been developed.

If you’re interested in reading more about rerefining used oil, you can download the “Used Oil Re-Refining Study to Address Energy Policy Act of 2005 Section 1838” from Engine Builder’s Web site (www.enginebuildermag.com). A ponderous title, to be sure, but it offers some interesting analysis of the impact used motor oil has on our environment and economics.

It is apparent that rerefined oils as a whole are meeting standards at a much higher level than that of recycled coolants that I talked about in Engine Builder in July (“Recycled Coolant – It Can Be A Big Deal,” EngINtel, page 14). So let’s see if we can’t get improperly disposed of waste oil down to the equivalent of only one tanker spill in the very near future. Who knows what impact that could have on our water, our lives and future generations.

For more information about motor oil, another interesting Web site you might want to check out is www.motoroilmatters.org.

I leave you with this last bit of information: Ford, GM, Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz and Detroit Diesel are just a few of the OE manufacturers that support the use of rerefined oils and say their use will have no impact at all on warranty, provided that they meet the recommended API, SAE or their own standard of qualifications.

Roy Berndt has decades of machine shop experience. He is the EDS Data Acquisition Contractor for the Production Engine Remanufacturers Association (PERA), and Program Manager for PROFormance Powertrain Products, a PER in Springfield, MO. You can reach Roy at rberndt@enginebuildermag.com.