Recycled Oil Again.....Oh Please!

Bill in Al said:
Anyone remember back in the dirt road days when the county would run tanker trucks spraying old used oil on the road to keep the dust down? May have preserved some of the old cars for us.
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I saved used oil and did the same thing. I had the barrel of oil setting on my small trailer, and a generator and electric pump running. It looked like it would keep the dust down in front of my house, but it only lasted a week or so. The local small town had a couple dirt roads and one guy dumped the oil on so thick that it left puddles. The townspeople told him to quit.
 
There are those who would say that re-refined / recycled oil was preferrable to oil refined from virgin stock. The reasons being that oil doesn't, generally, break down but rather becomes contaminated and that the volatile products have been burned off of the re-refined oil making it more stable. With that in mind, the recycled oil is just as clean, is more stable - thereby potentially lessening consumption - and is significantly cheaper. It makes apretty compelling case. I worked for a company that used several re-refined oil products with very good results for many years. FWIW
 
When my road was dirt they used to oil it at least once a year.They used 1500 gallons on 3.7 miles of road.We all just learned not to drive on unless we had to until it soaked in.If they did it in the morning by the next morning it was perfect.An outfit I worked for used to oil it's pit roads regularly.They stopped that around 1984.I would position the trailer where I wanted to start,have the truck running,door open,ready to go.The spreader bar was a 12 foot piece of 4 inch pipe with holes every 6 inches.I'd whip open that 4 inch valve and run for the truck.If I didn't hurry I'd be knee deep in oil in 30 seconds.It was a fun job for a young feller,driving a truck as fast as possible trying to get a good spread of oil,but not puddle it or leave dry spots.It came out at about 600 GPH,so it took a while to spread a 7000 gallon tank trailer.I wonder how many millions of gallons of old oil state and interstate highways have under them.
 
This brings back memorys oil in glass jars, oil in gallon cans, oil on the roads, oil leaking from rear seals, oil -oil every were I remember a old truck that never got a oil change only used to plow snow in the winter the truck all of a sudden got a bad oil leak owner checked under it and found the oil filter had rotted away and i remember one old timer that would drain his oil than use it in his lawn mower ahhh the good old days :) when oil was cheap
 
Bill in Al said:
Anyone remember back in the dirt road days when the county would run tanker trucks spraying old used oil on the road to keep the dust down? May have preserved some of the old cars for us.
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Yup. We owned a Station in a one station town back in the 60's, had a 250 gallon tank in the back, dumped all of the waste oils in the tank. Sold it to a Jobber who pumped it into a tank truck every couple of months, and resold it to the towns, for dirt road Dust Control.
 
What's funny is that the recycled Valvoline oil is more expensive than the 'new' Valvoline oil! Probably they're taking advantage of the greenie tree-hugger types who buy anything "recycled" even if more energy is used to recycle than produce new.
 
40 Deluxe said:
What's funny is that the recycled Valvoline oil is more expensive than the 'new' Valvoline oil! Probably they're taking advantage of the greenie tree-hugger types who buy anything "recycled" even if more energy is used to recycle than produce new.
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Bingo!
 
Bill in Al said:
Anyone remember back in the dirt road days when the county would run tanker trucks spraying old used oil on the road to keep the dust down? May have preserved some of the old cars for us.
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Ask the people in Times Beach Missouri, oh wait there is nobody left on Times Beach.:eek:
 
Mike V. Florida said:
Ask the people in Times Beach Missouri, oh wait there is nobody left on Times Beach.:eek:
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That wasn't oil, that was Askarel.

Nature deals with petroleum pretty well. Not so well with some of the exotic chemicals turned out before anyone thought what they would do in the long run.

Even at that, the UV light from the sun is cleaning up Times Beach and would do a better job if they turned the ground over once in a while.
 
I worked at a service station back in the 60's and sold many a can of "Re-refined oil" mostly to people with older cars. It seemed totally clean to me. Probably no additives though. How much worse could used refined oil be than plain old crude oil out of the ground?. They just ran it through the refining process again and it seemed good as new. As much as we use it seems a shame not to use it as long as possible.
 
Both the US Military and NASCAR are running vehicles with recycled oil, albeit with vastly different additive packages. Safety Kleen supplies both. You cannot get much more "mission critical" than the military or NASCAR. So, if it is good enough for them (and they have proven this to be the case), current generation re-refined will do fine in my $50 K car. Just my 2 cents. Mercedes Benz used to use blended partially recycled antifreeze as their factory fill a few years ago (saw this in demo at my local auto show MB display) - possibly they still do.
 
At an American station I worked at in high school the oil went right into the gas tanks.Ten oil changes a day there would have been a lot,so 50 quarts into one of the three 10,000 gallon tanks got pretty well diluted.I never knew it until many years later,when I found out it was common practice back then.The old boy that ran the Jenny station here from 1946 to 1974 told me that was where all his old oil went,except for what he used on his back lot.
 
I don't know of any oil that is thrown away. The road crews use all they can get to run the hot mix plants for asphalt. Everone loves to jump on the "green" wagon, but its not like it was going to waste. Re-use is the most efficient form of recycling.
 
Keith True said:
At an American station I worked at in high school the oil went right into the gas tanks.Ten oil changes a day there would have been a lot,so 50 quarts into one of the three 10,000 gallon tanks got pretty well diluted.I never knew it until many years later,when I found out it was common practice back then.The old boy that ran the Jenny station here from 1946 to 1974 told me that was where all his old oil went,except for what he used on his back lot.
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We did that only we put it in the diesel fuel.
 
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