Used oil

[jcworks]

We have a large property and I use the spent oil to help preserve around the bottom of fence posts. I dig a small trench around the bottom of each post and pout the oil into it. It usually soaks into the wood of the post and to some extent, the earth surrounding each one treated.
I have never found the oil creating a problem for the surrounding earth the whole time I have been doing it, and in fact the oil appears to dissipate quite quickly into the ground and causes no harm to anything that I have noticed.

I mostly do my own oil changes, so get to keep that oil for myself, but spent oil is now saved by auto garages when they perform oil changes on vehicles, then it's picked up to be reprocessed by those who see an easy cash cow in doing so - in other words - making good money from a substance they've been given for nothing. They then charge you a mint for your own oil back again when it's once more refined and all the impurities are filtered out.

I recall pulling up at a garage many years ago to fill up with petrol and noticed through a slightly opened door to a workshop area, a man, apparently trying to conceal himself behind the door, filling up various sized bottles of oil (pints and quarts) from a plastic container which I recognized by the label as a much cheaper brand of oil obtained by the method described above.

The bottles being filled were sitting in a wire rack advertising Shell XMO. So instead of the oil in the bottles being unadulterated and top quality - as advertised, the oil in them was now a cheap substitute! This 'cheap' oil was obviously being prepared to be placed next to the gas pumps with the price being charged commensurate with the Shell XMO label on the rack.

Never pulled up to purchase anything from that garage since!

I also have used used oil I collected around posts in small amounts. It works well to preserve the posts and keep termites away.

 

[KK560]

I burn mine in my wood burner.

 

[bertsmobile1]

It's too bad the companies that pick up the used oil don't pay anything anymore! Having worked for a major oil company for over 27 years I can say that, yes, they all recycle the used oil back into the refineries and sell it as recycled oil - or used to - at most auto parts stores. The process is expensive and, as I recall, only about 40% of the used oil is actually IN the product that is sold (all the contaminates and water are burned off and filtered out).
So... that's just a short explanation on the used oil processing and how it's re-introduced into the market. Each state has it's own rules, but mostly you can take it to any parts store and they will take it for free. I usually dump mine into a 5 gallon bucket and then when full take it to get dumped.

They all did such a good job at convincing Joe Public that just putting a bottle of recycled oil in their boot ( trunk to some ) would cause the engine to blow up.
Down here it is only large vehicle users like mines , bus companies, big trucking companies , railways & shipping that uses recycled oil .

 

[StarTech]

So running my vehicle engine without oil wasn't the reason the engine blew up; it was because I had a bottle of recycled oil in my trunk. Well I just learn something new as I always thought it was because the engine had no oil in it.

 

[SeniorCitizen]

If re-cycled oil isn't labeled that , I doubt it would take very much legislation to get it labeled that .

 

[Diwali]

All of my waste oil is reused around the property:
I use waste oil to protect any tools with wooden handles particularly spades, forks etc. A good wipe periodically with an oil soaked rag preserves the wood and extends its life.
For vehicles with box or round sections (particularly on the underside) that have openings allowing ingress of water/mud, I spray waste oil into any gaps to reduce corrosion.
Fence posts are given a good brush coating of waste oil on the whole post (above and below ground) when ‘planted’.
And, finally, oil soaked bits of cardboard will give bonfires or incinerators a good boost to get them going.
As a result I don’t have any waste oil disposal issues. Environmentalists, however, may not agree?

 

[The Maintenance Guy]

What do you guys do with your used oil? We have ours picked up by Safety Kleen. They use to pay for it but now charge to pick it up. Was talking to the guy that picked it up and he said a lot of the major oil companies bought from them and reprossed it. Like Mobile One, Valvoline to name a few. Said it cost less to process and was better than the crude. Don't know if this is true or not does anyone here know for sure.

I used to be in charge of the used oil at my company. We sent it out to a company that worked with used oil and special wastes. When the price of oil was $120 per barrel, companies were falling all over themselves to buy it from us, at $1 per gallon or more. When the price collapsed to $50 per barrel and below (in some cases oil had a negative value even) we went back to just getting it picked up for free. The old oil was not reprocessed to make new motor oil. It was often burned in an asphalt plant in a neighboring state or later it was loaded on a tanker in the Gulf or Mexico and sent to eastern Europe to use as heating fuel in homes or factories. There's really not much else that can be done with old oil as it is not of a consistent quality to make re-refining worthwhile. OSI and Safety Kleen were two companies we dealt with. There are still a few different companies out there although the smaller operations are getting absorbed into the larger one.

 

[Jimmy the Lock]

They would not want this stuff since it has water and gas along with the oil

They can filter it and separate the oil from all other substances.

 

[EABill]

Drop it off at a car repair shop. Most use it for heating with there used oil furnaces.

 

[hollydolly]

Mix it 50/50 with Diesel or spray on direct to your wooden stockade fence. Excellent way to recycle used motor oil. 100 plus year old farmers trick. Do it to my fence every two years. Still looks like new from our 2017 install. Neighbors full cedar is looking rather weathered about now. Diesel truck oil is the best. It is very black and stains the wood well. Clean oil doesn't stain the wood much. Trailers with wooden plank boards, same deal. Bugs don't like it. Doesn't catch fire. It actually soaks into the wood. You can put a cigarette light directly on the wood. It will not light off. It sits there and smolders.

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