Exploring Our Oil By-products
A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend who had hired me 25 years ago to build and manage a used oil recycling facility in the Washington DC region. My friend commented how remarkable it is that we have made such few improvements. Interestingly, in the early 1990’s, this friend and his partner in the oil recycling company founded another company that revolutionized the golf industry. Their company, Softspikes Golf Cleats, created a tipping point when they championed a ban on metal spikes, thus forever preserving golf greens around the world. You would think we could show similar innovation with used oil. Tragically, Americans have learned little regarding the price for our vast wasteful consumption of petroleum. We need a car fluid recovery tipping point!
How we can collectively better manage oil has global significance. Years ago there was a Pogo cartoon with a picture of an oil tanker in a backyard, and the caption read, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” At George Washington University in 1977 one of my environmental science text books alerted me to oil polluting my local watershed of Little Falls in Bethesda, Maryland, which ends into a major drinking water reservoir for the nation’s capital. Since then I have promoted the recovery of do-it-yourself automotive fluids from every possible angle. I began this effort in Montgomery County, Maryland and started DC’s used oil recycling efforts. In the last few years I have twice updated Virginia’s consumer used oil collection program.
Each year we use hundreds of billion of gallons of the world’s petroleum supplies. We spend more than $200,000 every minute overseas in our yearly consumption of over 7 billion barrels of oil products. Since the USA constitutes 5% of the world’s population, uses over 25 % of the world’s oil, and produces 22% of climate-altering CO2, we have a tremendous responsibility to better conserve our oil.
On the front end, there is the one trillion gallons of oil-field waste we inject into deep wells in addition to the 3 billion tons of oil and gas wastes we generate yearly by our oil and gas exploration and production in the USA. This does not even account for the price of foreign oil to come to us. Closer to home, Washington DC area motorists dispose of 11.2 million gallons of oil, equivalent to the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, every few years. The improper disposal of used oil, oil filters, oil bottles and antifreeze by those who perform their own automobile maintenance is a ubiquitous environmental concern. These do-it-yourself motorists who change their own oil and antifreeze account for roughly 45% of those owning passenger cars, and conservatively less than a third of used oil is believed to be recovered (and the figure is much lower for other materials.) Even the disposal of discarded oil filters, plastic containers and antifreeze reveals an amount of toxins that is alarming.
The current sampling method to evaluate the toxicity of oil, Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) is not the best test since it was designed for municipal landfills. I ask you to simply reflect on the fact that one gallon of used oil improperly disposed of can contaminate one million gallons of fresh water or ruin the water supply for 50 people for a year.Each year, the United States generates approximately 1.351 billion gallons of used oil; only 57 percent of this used oil is accounted for through recycling. The roughly 45 million people who change their own oil, the so-called do-it-yourselfers (DIYs), are a major source of improperly disposed used oil. Upwards of 300 million gallons of used oil are released into the environment each year in this manner. This does not include the loss of home heating oil from leaking from old tanks at peoples’ homes.
There are other harmful household chemicals. Each year according to EPA, Americans generate 1.6 million tons of hazardous household waste (HHW) including paints, cleaners, batteries, and pesticides. Also there are many small businesses and farms generating hazardous waste and exempt from managing their stuff if it is less than 100 pounds per year of harmful materials. There is limited information on how many tons of these materials impact our health and natural resources. Presently it is believed that a small percent of this toxic material is recovered, and the cost to do so can be expensive. Improper disposal of this non-point pollution threatens public health and the environment in many ways that must awaken us to this real terror in our homes.
We use numerous types of harmful petroleum-based chemicals that are dangerous in their disposition. An EPA study documents that many petroleum-derived products pose an elevated cancer risk to two-thirds of Americans. Roughly 200 million people are regularly exposed to some 32 toxic chemicals. We the people are fighting a different type of war on terrorism—one in which we are our own worst enemy. We must exercise both prudence and wise purchasing decisions so that we do not poison ourselves.
Did you know that roughly in every 16 oil filters there is one gallon of used oil?
Clearly we can minimize pollution by design. One innovative approach would be to promote reusable oil filters that are compatible with engines that use the one-piece sealed spin-on filter. No modifications or tools are required to install these filters on any engine that uses a spin-on filter, and they allow for the recovery of all used motor oil. The assembly housing is reused; only the paper element is replaced, and this can be easily recycled or burned for energy. Widespread adoption of these reusable filter systems would virtually eliminate used oil being trapped in filters and prevent steel filters entering landfills. If produced in volume, this filter could be manufactured for under a dollar per unit. At the point of final sale, the filter would cost somewhat less than the current spin-on filter. Reusable filters were popular up to the early 1960s and are still widely used in the racing industry.
In 1998 there were 450 million light-duty oil filters sold in the United States, while 778 million filters were purchased in 2002. You can estimate by this that possibly over a billion oil filters for cars will be sold this year. Seven years ago an average used light-duty oil filter contained on average six to eight ounces of oil, but this amount may be higher since American vehicles are much larger now
Another automotive fluid lost is antifreeze--a clear, colorless, sweet-tasting liquid that is attractive to small children and pets. This is the same material we make water bottles out of. If swallowed, it will cause depression, followed by respiratory and cardiac failure, and finally renal and brain damage. Annually, 200 million gallons of antifreeze are sold in the USA. It is not known how much of this is recovered. Various paths may be used for the recycling and disposal of antifreeze. Some major collectors may take antifreeze to be disposed of in approved water treatment plants. The end-user market for antifreeze is twofold. Antifreeze may be either recycled on-site for reuse in vehicles or taken off-site where it is recycled and sold as new antifreeze.
Finally, another residual product of the car repair sector is oil bottles. It has been estimated that every year we generate between 2 to 3.5 billion used motor oil bottles, each containing 1 to 1.25 ounces of oil: taken together roughly the equivalent of 1.5 to 3.5 times the amount generated by the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The good news is in the last quarter century the number of consumers recycling their used oil has more than doubled, however the vast majority is still lost in our environment. Also if these oil products go to an energy recovery facility or new landfill there is an increased comfort level.
We as consumers of harmful petroleum products must safeguard the health of our families and communities. There is no more critical timeframe to begin to protect our earth and ensure future hope. We are the source of the problem and the solution. We must create a culture where we reduce, reuse and recycle not just petroleum-based products but all our resources. We must become trail blazers and make the "oil can" mightier than the sword. We will profit from preventing pollution. Our country’s freedom warrants us to safely manage our black gold since it is interconnected to our future prosperity. Can you create a tipping point by exploring where your auto fluids go and ensure that they become a valuable resource instead of a hazardous waste?
How we can collectively better manage oil has global significance. Years ago there was a Pogo cartoon with a picture of an oil tanker in a backyard, and the caption read, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” At George Washington University in 1977 one of my environmental science text books alerted me to oil polluting my local watershed of Little Falls in Bethesda, Maryland, which ends into a major drinking water reservoir for the nation’s capital. Since then I have promoted the recovery of do-it-yourself automotive fluids from every possible angle. I began this effort in Montgomery County, Maryland and started DC’s used oil recycling efforts. In the last few years I have twice updated Virginia’s consumer used oil collection program.
Each year we use hundreds of billion of gallons of the world’s petroleum supplies. We spend more than $200,000 every minute overseas in our yearly consumption of over 7 billion barrels of oil products. Since the USA constitutes 5% of the world’s population, uses over 25 % of the world’s oil, and produces 22% of climate-altering CO2, we have a tremendous responsibility to better conserve our oil.
On the front end, there is the one trillion gallons of oil-field waste we inject into deep wells in addition to the 3 billion tons of oil and gas wastes we generate yearly by our oil and gas exploration and production in the USA. This does not even account for the price of foreign oil to come to us. Closer to home, Washington DC area motorists dispose of 11.2 million gallons of oil, equivalent to the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, every few years. The improper disposal of used oil, oil filters, oil bottles and antifreeze by those who perform their own automobile maintenance is a ubiquitous environmental concern. These do-it-yourself motorists who change their own oil and antifreeze account for roughly 45% of those owning passenger cars, and conservatively less than a third of used oil is believed to be recovered (and the figure is much lower for other materials.) Even the disposal of discarded oil filters, plastic containers and antifreeze reveals an amount of toxins that is alarming.
The current sampling method to evaluate the toxicity of oil, Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) is not the best test since it was designed for municipal landfills. I ask you to simply reflect on the fact that one gallon of used oil improperly disposed of can contaminate one million gallons of fresh water or ruin the water supply for 50 people for a year.Each year, the United States generates approximately 1.351 billion gallons of used oil; only 57 percent of this used oil is accounted for through recycling. The roughly 45 million people who change their own oil, the so-called do-it-yourselfers (DIYs), are a major source of improperly disposed used oil. Upwards of 300 million gallons of used oil are released into the environment each year in this manner. This does not include the loss of home heating oil from leaking from old tanks at peoples’ homes.
There are other harmful household chemicals. Each year according to EPA, Americans generate 1.6 million tons of hazardous household waste (HHW) including paints, cleaners, batteries, and pesticides. Also there are many small businesses and farms generating hazardous waste and exempt from managing their stuff if it is less than 100 pounds per year of harmful materials. There is limited information on how many tons of these materials impact our health and natural resources. Presently it is believed that a small percent of this toxic material is recovered, and the cost to do so can be expensive. Improper disposal of this non-point pollution threatens public health and the environment in many ways that must awaken us to this real terror in our homes.
We use numerous types of harmful petroleum-based chemicals that are dangerous in their disposition. An EPA study documents that many petroleum-derived products pose an elevated cancer risk to two-thirds of Americans. Roughly 200 million people are regularly exposed to some 32 toxic chemicals. We the people are fighting a different type of war on terrorism—one in which we are our own worst enemy. We must exercise both prudence and wise purchasing decisions so that we do not poison ourselves.
Did you know that roughly in every 16 oil filters there is one gallon of used oil?
Clearly we can minimize pollution by design. One innovative approach would be to promote reusable oil filters that are compatible with engines that use the one-piece sealed spin-on filter. No modifications or tools are required to install these filters on any engine that uses a spin-on filter, and they allow for the recovery of all used motor oil. The assembly housing is reused; only the paper element is replaced, and this can be easily recycled or burned for energy. Widespread adoption of these reusable filter systems would virtually eliminate used oil being trapped in filters and prevent steel filters entering landfills. If produced in volume, this filter could be manufactured for under a dollar per unit. At the point of final sale, the filter would cost somewhat less than the current spin-on filter. Reusable filters were popular up to the early 1960s and are still widely used in the racing industry.
In 1998 there were 450 million light-duty oil filters sold in the United States, while 778 million filters were purchased in 2002. You can estimate by this that possibly over a billion oil filters for cars will be sold this year. Seven years ago an average used light-duty oil filter contained on average six to eight ounces of oil, but this amount may be higher since American vehicles are much larger now
Another automotive fluid lost is antifreeze--a clear, colorless, sweet-tasting liquid that is attractive to small children and pets. This is the same material we make water bottles out of. If swallowed, it will cause depression, followed by respiratory and cardiac failure, and finally renal and brain damage. Annually, 200 million gallons of antifreeze are sold in the USA. It is not known how much of this is recovered. Various paths may be used for the recycling and disposal of antifreeze. Some major collectors may take antifreeze to be disposed of in approved water treatment plants. The end-user market for antifreeze is twofold. Antifreeze may be either recycled on-site for reuse in vehicles or taken off-site where it is recycled and sold as new antifreeze.
Finally, another residual product of the car repair sector is oil bottles. It has been estimated that every year we generate between 2 to 3.5 billion used motor oil bottles, each containing 1 to 1.25 ounces of oil: taken together roughly the equivalent of 1.5 to 3.5 times the amount generated by the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The good news is in the last quarter century the number of consumers recycling their used oil has more than doubled, however the vast majority is still lost in our environment. Also if these oil products go to an energy recovery facility or new landfill there is an increased comfort level.
We as consumers of harmful petroleum products must safeguard the health of our families and communities. There is no more critical timeframe to begin to protect our earth and ensure future hope. We are the source of the problem and the solution. We must create a culture where we reduce, reuse and recycle not just petroleum-based products but all our resources. We must become trail blazers and make the "oil can" mightier than the sword. We will profit from preventing pollution. Our country’s freedom warrants us to safely manage our black gold since it is interconnected to our future prosperity. Can you create a tipping point by exploring where your auto fluids go and ensure that they become a valuable resource instead of a hazardous waste?
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