Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Can I dump oil dri and other oil absorbents in my dumpster?
Good question. We don't know. The written EPA regs are very unclear on oil absorbents. We do know that if the waste absorbed is hazardous, you can not. As far as non-hazardous used oil, grease, used antifreeze, ideally the EPA would want you to take a representative sample, perform a TCLP test on it and if the analysis proves its non-hazardous, the EPA suggests in principle it can be landfilled. As the environmental movement picks up steam and more innovation develops around reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink, invariably some smart boy or girl will figure out a way to recycle or up-cycle spent oil absorbents and keep them out of the landfills.
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2 comments:
You're correct, the regulations are unclear and can be confusing. Here's a link that may be helpful to the EPA's site on managing used waste oil: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/usedoil/usedoil.htm . The area on oil leaks and spills encourages people to recycle the spilled oil. This can be done through an environmental laundry processor that cleans and services absorbents, such as AbsorbTech (their web site is http://www.absorbtech.com/ ). Using a service such as this greatly reduces the company's environmental liability, not to mention all the paperwork and sifting through regulations they'd otherwise have to do if throwing the stuff in a dumpster.
Thanks for the build, Jennifer!
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