Being environmentally friendly is becoming increasingly popular in today’s society. Being environmentally friendly is the act of living with the intention of not creating harm to the environment, and to prevent as much harm from occurring to the environment through your interactions with it. Being environmentally friendly goes far beyond just turning off lights when you leave the room or separating your garbage for recycling – it is about changing the purpose of how you live.
Used oil is extremely harmful to the environment – with one litre of used oil being capable of contaminating one million litres of water. Used oil finds its way into the environment through irresponsible disposal – by being thrown down storm water drains, onto the open ground or thrown into landfills.
Used oil is the lubricating oil that is drained from machinery, engines, gearboxes, hydraulic systems, turbines, and air compressors. The various types of used oils include:
- Used lubricating based oil that has deteriorated and degraded to acids.
- Used oil that is contaminated with wear debris.
- Used oil in which the additives have decomposed into other chemical species.
- Used oil that is contaminated because process fluids, de-greasers, and solvents have mixed into it.
If used oil is thrown down a drain or onto the ground, it can seep into groundwater systems. If used, unprocessed oil is burnt in furnaces, harmful toxic components are emitted into the atmosphere damaging and polluting the air that we breathe. For this reason, it is illegal to dump used oil or to burn it without processing it first.
Used oil contains components that are very damaging to the environment in a number of different ways, as it tends to accumulate in soil and water as toxic gases and harmful metallic dust particles. Once the used oil enters the waterway, it biodegrades slowly as it hampers oxygen access to the microorganisms that would otherwise assist in breaking it down. The best method of dealing with used oil is to either recycle it or to safely dispose of it.
The law requires the responsible storage, collection and recycling of used oil within the strict compliance requirements of the Waste Act. Used oil is generated by a wide variety of sources including industrial machinery, motor vehicles, mining equipment, and agricultural equipment. It is very important that used oil is collected and responsibly disposed or recycled, including the smaller amounts that are generated by DIY mechanics, farmers, and small industry.
The process of recycling oil involves taking used engine oil and adapting it for different purposes, the most common example entails burning it as a fuel source. The used oil is recycled by making use of commercial filtration systems in order to remove insoluble impurities; however, this does not remove the soluble contaminants.
Used oil that is not suitable for recycling should be disposed of correctly and safely, by a company that specializes in oil disposal, such as Enfields Chemicals. The operators that manage the oil disposals are correctly trained in spillage, Hazchem, first aid and firefighting, enabling them to work safely with old oil which can be dangerous.
The used oil is pumped into 1000 litre and 600-litre tanks on a specialized vehicle that is used for oil disposals. At Enfields Chemicals, a full paper trail for each load of oil is kept and the seller of the old oil is issued with a safety disposal certificate. This certificate will state the seller of the used oil, the transporter of the oil and the waste management company that purchases this oil. All old, unusable oil is converted to bunker fuel after blending.
Being environmentally friendly is crucial in today’s society and people are encouraged to properly dispose or recycle used oil correctly. Enfields Chemicals specializes in oil disposal and other oil-related services and guarantee the safest, most professional disposal of all used and old oil.
