Fuel mix disposal

wrbix

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Have a couple gallons of 2 cycle oil:gasoline mix that is old and probably contaminated. Ideas how to safely and ecologically reasonably dispose of. Hazardous waste days around here are all but nonexistent.
Thinking of just letting it evaporate but this time of year would take forever.
 
Have a couple gallons of 2 cycle oil:gasoline mix that is old and probably contaminated. Ideas how to safely and ecologically reasonably dispose of. Hazardous waste days around here are all but nonexistent.
Thinking of just letting it evaporate but this time of year would take forever.
Burning would be better than evaporation from an environmental point of view.

What part of the world are ya in?
 
Have a couple gallons of 2 cycle oil:gasoline mix that is old and probably contaminated. Ideas how to safely and ecologically reasonably dispose of. Hazardous waste days around here are all but nonexistent.
Thinking of just letting it evaporate but this time of year would take forever.

I think @SixPapaCharlie has a video out on how he disposes of fuel. He says it's good for the complexion or something. o_O
 
I just dump anything like that in either my work car or some other small engine application that isn’t particularly sensitive to fuel quality.
 
Any way you could mix a tiny amount with fresh fuel in an old weed eater, snow blower, lawn mower, etc? Heck, an old truck for that matter. Just run it through a coffee filter and leave the bottoms (water, sludge, seds) in the gas can. A little old oil & gas mix in dilute quantities won't hurt a thing.
 
Various auto parts stores usually have an oil depository that is open to the public. Might want to call around and see if they’ll allow fuel.
 
Various auto parts stores usually have an oil depository that is open to the public. Might want to call around and see if they’ll allow fuel.
The recyclers won't take used oil if the vapor pressure is too high. At least that's the way it was years ago. Maybe they've changed.
 
The recyclers won't take used oil if the vapor pressure is too high. At least that's the way it was years ago. Maybe they've changed.
Still that way for any that happens at the salvage yard. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen often.
 
I have disposed some stale two cycle mix by adding it into my push mower a swig at a time. Smokes a bit but is otherwise fine.
 
I'll toss a half gallon or so of old fuel in the truck every tank or two until it's all gone. Half gallon in 26 gallons is pretty dilute and not a problem.
 
I wouldn't toss 2-cycle mix in anything with a O2 sensor, but that's just me. Throw it in anything carbed and I'm fine. I'd be more likely to use it to start a burn pile or kill weeds on the property line.
 
I wouldn't toss 2-cycle mix in anything with a O2 sensor, but that's just me. Throw it in anything carbed and I'm fine. I'd be more likely to use it to start a burn pile or kill weeds on the property line.
Just remember that any hydrocarbons that are poured on the ground end up in the water table.
 
most autozone and advance stores sometimes have a place to dump old oil...
See posts 6, 7 and 8. In general places that retail motor oil must provide access to recycling.
 
I'll take my chances that 1/2 gallon poured on my burn pile won't affect the water table in any measurable amount.
Burning is one thing. Killing weeds is another.

Anyway I have been in oil & gas a long time and have seen enough. I’ll educate folks and help change habits for a cleaner environment. I don’t really care if it annoys folks.
 
Thanks for replies.
Will filter through a coffee filter and then add a bit every tankful to the 4 stroke mower. Mow and fog for mosquitoes concomitantly
 
Burning is one thing. Killing weeds is another.

Anyway I have been in oil & gas a long time and have seen enough. I’ll educate folks and help change habits for a cleaner environment. I don’t really care if it annoys folks.
Where's the education part? Two gallons of gas diluted by a million gallons of rain to wash it into the water table. Oil floats, and already exists in nature, we didn't materialize it magically. Go for it. I'm listening.
 
Put it in your lawnmower, it won't hurt it. Or any old car that doesn't have a catalytic converter.
 
Where's the education part? Two gallons of gas diluted by a million gallons of rain to wash it into the water table. Oil floats, and already exists in nature, we didn't materialize it magically. Go for it. I'm listening.
You clearly aren’t listening. You are denying. Refined products do not exist in nature so get over that one right away. Trace amounts of certain refined hydrocarbon products cause certain cancers.

Stop being ignorant with refined hydrocarbons. Information is readily available.
 
I have disposed some stale two cycle mix by adding it into my push mower a swig at a time. Smokes a bit but is otherwise fine.

If it smokes that bad it must be REALLY old or a really thick oil/fuel mix. If it is really that bad I would probably add a conservative amount of fuel to each tank the way you are, but if it isn't that bad I'd just dump it in and run on it to get rid of it faster.

All I run in my small engines/4 stroke lawn and garden equipment is 32:1 mixed 2 stroke gas. I have enough 2 strokes around that I don't want to have a second fuel can for straight vs. mixed. Everything runs fine and doesn't smoke.
 
You clearly aren’t listening. You are denying. Refined products do not exist in nature so get over that one right away. Trace amounts of certain refined hydrocarbon products cause certain cancers.

Stop being ignorant with refined hydrocarbons. Information is readily available.
So you aren't going to educate, just preach. Gotcha.
 
So you aren't going to educate, just preach. Gotcha.
A closed mind can’t be educated. You already made it clear that you are in denial with your first response to me in this thread.
 
You clearly aren’t listening. You are denying. Refined products do not exist in nature so get over that one right away. Trace amounts of certain refined hydrocarbon products cause certain cancers.

Stop being ignorant with refined hydrocarbons. Information is readily available.

Stupid question, and I don't mean to interrupt the ***** fest, but, I know you're in to oil and gas. The area off shore to the La Brea tar pits in LA has been puking oil for likely thousands of years. Are these oil disasters at sea as big of a deal as they are made to be?
 
Stupid question, and I don't mean to interrupt the ***** fest, but, I know you're in to oil and gas. The area off shore to the La Brea tar pits in LA has been puking oil for likely thousands of years. Are these oil disasters at sea as big of a deal as they are made to be?
There is a difference between the natural seeps and the large man made releases. Certainly animals can cope with seeps better than spills. The spills can kill everything in a given area for a season. Nature recovers but it takes time.

You mention “at sea” and yeah, I’d rather sea a spill a thousand miles from the nearest coast. The distance gives time for Mother Nature to break up the spill. It’ll still impact a coast if the spill is large enough. The Gulf of Mexico had tar balls for years after the Ixtoc 1 blowout.

That said crude oil is much easier for the environment to deal with than refined products. Crude oil actually seems to be a fertilizer in some cases. Of course that doesn’t mean that I want crude oil in my water supply.

P.s. headstrong idjiots like salty need to be on the receiving end of some abuse or they will never wake up.
 
I wanna get in on this. Been doing groundwater remediation for a quarter century this year.

You all are both right and both wrong. It all depends and there are no absolutes. Sandy vs clayey soils, temperature outdoors, depth to water table, groundwater velocity.

Gasoline? Nature quickly degrades it. With MTBE in it? MTBE doesn't degrade and moves fast. Oil mix? Degrades slower.

Got a shallow private well on a small property? Try not to dump gas for your own good.

I've got sites that I took over that have been in remediation since the early 1980s that won't be clean before 2050s. It took a snapshot in time to contaminate, it'll take decades to remediate.

I have chemicals that have regulatory groundwater concentration limits that are almost unattainable. Equivalent to about 1 sugar packet in 100 Olympic size swimming pools. Ridiculously small.

Soapbox time: the regs in the US and a few other developed countries got us to where we are with clean air and water, but more and more regs are not helpful, diminishing returns. I've been responsible managing for a dozen and a half chemical plant closures and demolitions. In only one instance did we bring jobs back to the US. Pollution is bad, clean environment is good, overkill is wasteful*.

Just like flying, there are a spectrum of risks; just be smart and don't go to either extreme.

*One last ranty-rantish rant - in this country there are extremists that are looking for the n'th degree of clean, looking for parts per quadrillion of chemicals in our food and water and lobbying to ban certain (all?) chemicals. Wouldn't that effort and dollar be better spent on improving health in other parts of the world? In last 25 years, I've spent millions on remediating soil and groundwater, burning through $1-2MM per month, managing liabilities of over $100MM. Last year I went on a mission trip to Honduras for Living Water International with 11 other people and installed a drinking water well at an elementary school that only had raw river water piped to the school; attendance rates were 50% due to water borne illness. I spent 1 week there and we collectively spent less than $20k to bring clean water to 500 kiddos. I did more good for human health and wellbeing in 1 week and $20k than I have 25 years and over $10MM spent in my career. WTF are we doing in our stupid bubbles? I laid off of my PPL training for 3 months after that trip cuz it just seemed pointless after seeing all that over there.

I've been a little cranky on POA lately, haven't I?

Hope I didn't lead this thread into a future lock.
 
I wanna get in on this. Been doing groundwater remediation for a quarter century this year.

You all are both right and both wrong. It all depends and there are no absolutes. Sandy vs clayey soils, temperature outdoors, depth to water table, groundwater velocity.

Gasoline? Nature quickly degrades it. With MTBE in it? MTBE doesn't degrade and moves fast. Oil mix? Degrades slower.

Got a shallow private well on a small property? Try not to dump gas for your own good.

I've got sites that I took over that have been in remediation since the early 1980s that won't be clean before 2050s. It took a snapshot in time to contaminate, it'll take decades to remediate.

I have chemicals that have regulatory groundwater concentration limits that are almost unattainable. Equivalent to about 1 sugar packet in 100 Olympic size swimming pools. Ridiculously small.

Soapbox time: the regs in the US and a few other developed countries got us to where we are with clean air and water, but more and more regs are not helpful, diminishing returns. I've been responsible managing for a dozen and a half chemical plant closures and demolitions. In only one instance did we bring jobs back to the US. Pollution is bad, clean environment is good, overkill is wasteful*.

Just like flying, there are a spectrum of risks; just be smart and don't go to either extreme.

*One last ranty-rantish rant - in this country there are extremists that are looking for the n'th degree of clean, looking for parts per quadrillion of chemicals in our food and water and lobbying to ban certain (all?) chemicals. Wouldn't that effort and dollar be better spent on improving health in other parts of the world? In last 25 years, I've spent millions on remediating soil and groundwater, burning through $1-2MM per month, managing liabilities of over $100MM. Last year I went on a mission trip to Honduras for Living Water International with 11 other people and installed a drinking water well at an elementary school that only had raw river water piped to the school; attendance rates were 50% due to water borne illness. I spent 1 week there and we collectively spent less than $20k to bring clean water to 500 kiddos. I did more good for human health and wellbeing in 1 week and $20k than I have 25 years and over $10MM spent in my career. WTF are we doing in our stupid bubbles? I laid off of my PPL training for 3 months after that trip cuz it just seemed pointless after seeing all that over there.

I've been a little cranky on POA lately, haven't I?

Hope I didn't lead this thread into a future lock.
Just 25 years? I grew up in the patch. Folks like salty and sooner need to be educated on the hazards since it is simple to avoid deliberate dumping of refined hydrocarbons. No new regs are required since dumping any hydrocarbons on the ground (or in the sewer) is prohibited under the clean water act. No need to be fanatical about small spills but no need to deliberately dump it either.

The attitude of “just returning it to nature” is pure ignorance and it needs to be eradicated.

And your comment on gasoline evaporating. Mostly true but not totally true. There is always some residue. Avgas always leaves lead behind. Mogas always leaves some heavy ends.
 
Just 25 years? I grew up in the patch. Folks like salty and sooner need to be educated on the hazards since it is simple to avoid deliberate dumping of refined hydrocarbons. No new regs are required since dumping any hydrocarbons on the ground (or in the sewer) is prohibited under the clean water act. No need to be fanatical about small spills but no need to deliberately dump it either.

The attitude of “just returning it to nature” is pure ignorance and it needs to be eradicated.

And your comment on gasoline evaporating. Mostly true but not totally true. There is always some residue. Avgas always leaves lead behind. Mogas always leaves some heavy ends.

I appreciate what you're saying. I think we've seen some similar things.

Tetra-ethyl-lead converts to elemental lead and then into its oxide form, which is then insoluble. Ain't goin no where. I've got a lead filled landfill with no liner (pre-1970s) that butts right up to the property line with no lead in the fence line monitor wells.

The heavy ends of gasoline eventually are fully converted. They're not that heavy. Timing depends on subsurface conditions.

Discharge of hydrocarbons is allowed by permit in most all jurisdictions, albeit in small quantities.

Again, no black & white absolutes.
 
If it smokes that bad it must be REALLY old or a really thick oil/fuel mix. If it is really that bad I would probably add a conservative amount of fuel to each tank the way you are, but if it isn't that bad I'd just dump it in and run on it to get rid of it faster.
.

Should have said 'a little bit'. I doubt oil at 100:1 is doing anything good or bad to the simple 4-stroke engine in my mower. I wouldn't do this in anything that has oxygen sensor or cathalytic convertors. Running it through an engine just seems the best way to dispose of unwanted fuel.
 
I appreciate what you're saying. I think we've seen some similar things.

Tetra-ethyl-lead converts to elemental lead and then into its oxide form, which is then insoluble. Ain't goin no where. I've got a lead filled landfill with no liner (pre-1970s) that butts right up to the property line with no lead in the fence line monitor wells.

The heavy ends of gasoline eventually are fully converted. They're not that heavy. Timing depends on subsurface conditions.

Discharge of hydrocarbons is allowed by permit in most all jurisdictions, albeit in small quantities.

Again, no black & white absolutes.
“Discharge of hydrocarbons is allowed” is a bit of a canard. When it is allowed it is the lesser of two evils.

Everything is eventually fully converted. It’s just a matter of when.
 
...dumping any hydrocarbons on the ground (or in the sewer) is prohibited under the clean water act.

"Dumping". Correct, but that's slang usage.
"Any". Incorrect.
"Sewer". Incorrect.

“Discharge of hydrocarbons is allowed” is a bit of a canard.

Canard means a false or baseless story, report, or rumor. What I said is a fact.

One example: City of Indy allows concentrations of up to 1000 ug/L of hydrocarbons to be discharged (dumped if you will) into the sewer. That sewer is regulated by the CWA.
 
There is a difference between the natural seeps and the large man made releases. Certainly animals can cope with seeps better than spills. The spills can kill everything in a given area for a season. Nature recovers but it takes time.

You mention “at sea” and yeah, I’d rather sea a spill a thousand miles from the nearest coast. The distance gives time for Mother Nature to break up the spill. It’ll still impact a coast if the spill is large enough. The Gulf of Mexico had tar balls for years after the Ixtoc 1 blowout.

That said crude oil is much easier for the environment to deal with than refined products. Crude oil actually seems to be a fertilizer in some cases. Of course that doesn’t mean that I want crude oil in my water supply.

P.s. headstrong idjiots like salty need to be on the receiving end of some abuse or they will never wake up.
I took you up on your offer to educate, and You call me and idiot. I think you've made it clear who's mind is closed here.
 
Just 25 years? I grew up in the patch. Folks like salty and sooner need to be educated on the hazards since it is simple to avoid deliberate dumping of refined hydrocarbons. No new regs are required since dumping any hydrocarbons on the ground (or in the sewer) is prohibited under the clean water act. No need to be fanatical about small spills but no need to deliberately dump it either.

The attitude of “just returning it to nature” is pure ignorance and it needs to be eradicated.

And your comment on gasoline evaporating. Mostly true but not totally true. There is always some residue. Avgas always leaves lead behind. Mogas always leaves some heavy ends.
Folks that ask you to explain your position are the problem? Only to people like you.

You claimed you only wanted to educate, but instead you call me names when I encourage you to actually do it.
 
Technically, the CWA applies to untreated discharges and treated effluent leading to a surface water course. It's up to the municipality to decide what to allow and disallow in its POTW feed sewers.
 
True Sac. It's the POTW that is governed by the CWA, not the users directly.

Happy thanksgiving to all! Be thankful for this site, the mods, and your fellow POAer, otherwise we'd have nothing to talk about and nowhere to talk about it.
 
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