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This is a long shot, but I just emptied about five litres of very black engine oil from a diesel tractor. I wondered if there is ANYTHING USEFUL this will do, before I take it down to the dump.

On a related note, what does the dump do with it?

There is nothing useful I can think of.

The oil that goes to dumps is collected and taken away by waste oil processors. They filter it to remove any lumps, run it through zeolites to remove metals, add water and centriguge to remove detergent and other additives that were added to the original lubricant.

After that they sell it either to be blended in small amounts into furnace oil or marine fuel (some ship owners are very unhappy about doing this) or it goes back to a refinery and gets mixed into the crude oil supply.

It can be quite lucrative: normally they do not pay for the waste oil they collect and sometimes they even get paid to take it away. They often take waste solvents away too. Better than pouring it down the drain.

wow !! never new that,
what a great word ZEOLITES must remember that

Russ

Damn. Was hoping for something along the lines of 'world's most effective slug repellent'. Looks like it's off to the dump for someone else to deal with. At least it's recycled...

YES!!! there is a use for it, paint your fence with it instead of creosote.

Get half a barrel (must be watertight and chemical resistant), fill it with sand and then pour in just enough oil that the sand is lightly oiled all the way through. Put the barrel just inside your shed door or next to where you keep your gardening tools. When you've finished work for the day, scrape off the worst of the dirt with a "man" (a hardwood wedge with a handle), then plunge the tools into the sand box several times to clean and oil them. Wipe the tools lightly with a cloth and put them away.

You could also use it in an oil-fired garage/space heater, but you really need a lot of old oil to make it worthwhile.

It's not a good idea to use old oil as a wood preservative, to kill weeds on paths or to anti-rust the underside of your car as the oil eventually finds its way into groundwater. A firefighter once told me sump oil from one car can contaminate in excess of 4 million litres of drinking water.

The instead-of-creosote idea was good (the only downside being my only fencing is stock, plain wire, chicken wire or electric), but the keeping-the-tools-in-great-shape plan... that's genius. I was going to have to buy some sand anyway.

devolutionary wrote:The instead-of-creosote idea was good (the only downside being my only fencing is stock, plain wire, chicken wire or electric), .

You must have something keeping the chicken wire and wire upright though? (unless you only have warratahs).

Stonehead, I would think the chance of the engine oil being painted on an existing fence (ie above ground only) and effecting the ground water would be minimal, it certainly can be no more of a risk of creosote doing that. Once the oil has soaked into the wood it can't leach out as it is not water soluable. Yes you could argue that eventually the posts will rot and probably end up in landfill or burnt on a bonfire, but the oil as preservative effect should delay the need to replace the fence which has to be good.
If you have any studies showing the effect/problem I would be interested to read them.

Stonehead wrote:Get half a barrel (must be watertight and chemical resistant), fill it with sand and then pour in just enough oil that the sand is lightly oiled all the way through. Put the barrel just inside your shed door or next to where you keep your gardening tools. When you've finished work for the day, scrape off the worst of the dirt with a "man" (a hardwood wedge with a handle), then plunge the tools into the sand box several times to clean and oil them. Wipe the tools lightly with a cloth and put them away.

Damn! Stoney beat me to it!


A good old trick that ive read about several times in different sources and defnitly worth doing to extend the life of quality tools.

Me I've not disposed of any in 18 years and being as how I've run 3 generators, several vehicles and fishing boats in that time it's allot of oil. I use it for soaking wire rope and keeping tools from going rusty but that still leaves me with several hundred gallons which come 'peak oil' will be worth a fortune The reason I started to save it was to make a greenhouse heater that would burn it but I've not even built the greenhouse yet

Cheers, Paul

PS I love the zeolites thingy must be a good one for scrabble

I always hold some back and use it to paint on the leaves of my leaf springs on the Land Rover. I guess you could do a lot of Land Rovers with 5 litres though!

It was suggested to me to soak the bottoms of fence posts in a bucket of old oil before bashing them into the ground but I won't do it for the same reasons Stoney mentioned re painting with it.

what is a warratah?

It is a metal post used for temporary fencing, you attach plastic insulators to is to run electric fences on.

I like the idea of protecting tools, but I was told in my former life that used engine oil should be regarded as hazardous, irritating to skin and possibly carcinongenic (sp?) due to the chemical changes it undergoes after being repeatedly heated and cooled. So I always use veg oils for wiping me tools down. Not as effective, perhaps, but safer.

As for burning it...I would have expected it to smoke like the devil.

Oil might not appear soluble, but it will disolve to measurable (part per million ) levels in water which make it unfit for consumption so Stonehead's firefighter was quite right.

Safer, in my opinion, to hand it over to professionals. Mind you, that does rather make the assumption that they know what they are doing

i have read previously that there are some species of edible mushrooms that will break down oil and consume the hazardous materials within. i am not sure if said mushrooms are still edible after being used for the oil, but it would still be a way to dispose of it. if i remember correctly, they were being used with hair mats to soak up oil in the san francisco bay spill not too long ago.