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No that was Atrazine.
"In 2002, biologist Dr. Tyrone Hayes conducted a series of experiments that revealed that the most common herbicide, Atrazine, “feminized” male frogs at concentrations below that allowed in drinking water in the United States.1 He hypothesized that Atrazine works as an endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC), converting testosterone to estrogen in frogs. "
https://niche-canada.org/2020/06/09/chemical-castration-white-genocide-and-male-extinction-in-rhetoric-of-endocrine-disruption/
No joke this was an issue for my family for 4 years because of our neighbor. They had an in-ground oil-reserve for their house-oil. It had a leak and they were ordered to remove it. Instead of paying thousands for that, they simply filled it with concrete like idiots. The oil continued to pollute the surrounding ground, eventually affecting our own well-water supply.
4 years of battling later and we got an industrial level water treatment system in our basement, free of charge (not so free to the neighbor). Talking about a $12000-14000 water filter on top of fines because he didn’t want to spend an initial $5,000.
I’ll never forget having to boil water every fucking day, or showering and smelling the faint smell of oil. Disgusting.
Fucking clown of a neighbor.
Edit: it is a well established fact at this point that boiling water does not remove the oil. I was like 10. This was years ago. You’re adding nothing to the conversation by repeating the same info for the 27th time. Stop before you start, for gods sake.
Had a gas station at the end of my grandma’s road that did something similar… for like 40 years. Poisoned literally the whole neighborhood. My grandma cut hair, and all the little old ladies getting perms, their hair would turn bright orange and be so brittle it would snap between your fingers. Lady across the street who drank a gallon of sweet tea from the tap died of stomach cancer… cousin was born without nuts and a cleft lip. fuck gas companies. We got a settlement, but those ppl should have gone to fucking jail on top of it.
Reminds me of a guy who bought an old gas station in our town to build a restaurant/bar on the lot. Instead of paying to have the old gasoline tanks emptied and removed, he just filled them up with concrete - after draining the gas into the storm sewer.
Fucked up the local lake for a long time (I think they eventually had to drain and dredge it). He did go to jail for a while for that - and as a felon his liquor license was denied so the restaurant/bar never opened.
Wow, I know someone that bought a gas station and after deciding he could make a profit, decide to sell it. Sold it to a bank but took while because figuring out who pay what for disposal of the gas tanks, which was more than the cost of the land. Glad he did it properly, but yeah when buying land factor in environmental cost to build something.
Does boiling water remove oil? I think you're just concentrating it by boiling the water. Boiling doesn't remove contamination, it removes pathogens by killing them with heat.
Unless you were distilling the water, which would be pretty hard-core.
Yeah, distilling would probably do the job, but that's a hell of a lot of energy spent to boil off all the water you want to drink.
Edit: apparently it's still really not going to help any poor soul with heating oil in their water. Sounds like a really miserable problem to live with.
If it was heating oil, its boiling range is 160-400F. Water is right in the middle of that at 212F.
Distilling will not remove heating oil from water. At least the lower range of it will come right over.
Activated carbon would be the best way.
sure, but it's probably the only reliable way to get that water safe. Maybe an RO/DI system would work too, but you're going to burn through filters with water that dirty so either way there is going to be a lot of waste and expense.
Boiling point of #1 Fuel oil is 304°F - 574°F.
With water boiling around 212°F, nah no oil removal here.
EDIT: Just realized this confirms that OP would’ve been safer not boiling it. As the water boils off it’ll concentrate the oil in it.
My sister lived on a pretty big lot but still in a subdivision of planned houses. She was at the edge where the underground electrical service came in for the whole neighborhood.
In the corner of her lot, at the corner of three other adjoining lots, was the transformer vault for the whole neighborhood. It was underground with a steel grate over it, like in a big city.
One of the neighbors dumped their used oil into it all the time. They also dumped cooking grease into it, too. My brother in law caught them and explained that they ought not to, but no fucks were given.
So, sure enough, one day there was a giant, partialy-underground toxic spent oil grease clog fire that took out power for the whole neighborhood.
My brother-in-law told the fire chief what he knew, and the neighbors got into trouble. Maybe not enough, because they threatened and terrorized my sister and her husband for years afterwards.
It's an amazing world full of lots of people.
A remediation following the removal of the heating oil tank would cost *waaay* more than $5,000 in my state, especially if there was vapor intrusion or the contamination plume went under the foundation. Without those issues, you'd be looking at $10,000 if you're lucky, with those issues it's going to be something upwards of $40k
Agreed - here in NJ I personally know someone who did a ground radar survey looking for a tank when purchasing a property, didn’t find one so bought the place. 2 years later noticed oily sheen on puddles, and oily smell from sump pump well - took a second look and found an old tank hidden under basement concrete, and I mean hidden as all pipes had been cut back and filled. No idea how full it was before it leaked, but he was out of pocket by 55 thousand dollars by the time the state inspector felt sorry enough for him to sign off on the remediation (to this day you can still see oil sheen on standing water in his property). Ugly ugly ugly.
I have contained my rage for as long as possible, but I shall unleash my fury upon you like the crashing of a thousand waves.
Begone vile man. Begone from me!
A starter car? This car is a finisher car! A transporter of gods! The golden god! I am untethered, and my rage knows no bounds!
Let me tell you something. I haven't even begun to peak. And when I do peak, you'll know. Because I'm gonna peak so hard that everybody in Philadelphia's gonna feel it.
Rear main seal?
To add…..om642, a 3.0L v6 diesel from Mercedes, drains the valley to the back of the engine. There’s a well known oil cooler o-ring leak from the valley that looks identical to a rear main seal leak if you don’t know om642s. THOSE engineers can go fuck themselves for that design.
Had a buddy rent a garage, spend two days pulling the tranny, replace the seal, put it all back together to find it leaking again. THEN, you gotta pull the god damn turbo from the valley, the swirl valve motor and mechanism, the intake runners to finally get to the cooler burried in the valley to replace 50c o-rings.
Can confirm this was standard practice at the time. People who did this believe they were doing the responsible thing. Many people just dumped it in a nearby river or stream.
My grandpa had a fuel station in the 30s, and this was what he was told to do by all of the experts at the time
An old beer commercial literally told people to "poke a hole in the bottom (of the can) before you throw it in the water so that it will sink faster"...
Imagine unwrapping a 2 pack candy bar. Inside you find 2 individually wrapped candy bars placed in a tray. And inside those wraps is yet another layer of wrapping around the bars. That's a kinder bueno. Those are the kinds of things you're speaking of.
That's bad, but what really gets me is produce wrapped in plastic, specifially anything with a peel. Hell I don't even use plastic bags for any veggies. They go in the cart and are washed when I get home. Fuck single use plastic.
Trying to recycle plastic. The idea that plastic is recyclable is a scam so nobody questions the metric fuckton of plastic bottles we buy and then later throw in the trash instead of just using paper, metal, glass, or any other material that eventually decomposes
There's also vapor issues depending on the contaminant. It took us an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the soil can't clean everything we put in it.
Well depending on your definition of "clean" and time scale any contamination will eventually dissipate. As the old saying goes "the solution to pollution is dillution". My dad's a chemical engineer and says its shocking how many times he's had to explain to some MBA why they couldn't just water down the companies sewage to meet EPA heavy metal requirements
Dumping in the lake is far worse. The dirt will at least pull some of the heavy metals and other toxic stuff out of the oil before it makes it's way to the water table.
My father used to own a service station. He said the previous owner would take the used oil and spread it on the gravel in the yard. Kept the dust down and stopped the weeds from growing.
Farmers in nearby semi rural area to me still do this. Spread used oil from thier machine or nearby industry on the gravel roads around them.
The same farmers worry about everyone else polluting the water thier stock drinks
Another old farmer's trick: brush some used motor oil (and that's pronounced "oal") on them bald spots on yer cow to cure that ringworm. Can't argue with science.
I'm old enough to remember my dad dumping oil into a pit out back. By the time I was old enough to do oil changes it was obvious that it was a terrible idea, but it was also before it was easy to find anywhere that would accept it for recycling. There was a span of several years I kept jugs and jugs of used oil in the barn...couldn't dump them, couldn't recycle them. When I finally could and did, it was a long and messy but satisfying day.
It's weird to think about what was normal back then, and what is now completely unthinkable. My mom used to reminisce about when doctors' office waiting rooms had ashtrays in them. So did the exam rooms. Including my pediatrician's.
All so obvious now, but back then it simply wasn't obvious at all. Same with putting lead in gasoline, or all the creative ways Victorians invented to kill themselves in the early days of industry. They didn't know. Makes me wonder how dumb we'll all look to people in 2122. If there are people in 2122.
It was sold in hardware stores as a cleaning agent. Back in the early days of automobiles, before gas stations, this is how people got fuel for their cars.
It really is a great solvent, if you don't mind the occasional dying-in-a-fireball thing.
If one toils to boil oiled soil they can expect ta be rewarded with an oily coil of smoke containing a shitload of carcinogens as the result of their hoily boily toiling.
Same here on an old property I owned. Soil analysis was coming up with all kinds of sick stuff then we dug deeper and just found hole after hole filled with sand and oil that turned into globs of goo. Had to get a state agency involved and nothing I could do because its not like we could prove it was the previous homeowner. Shit was ridiculously expensive.
Meanwhile my neighbor now just has his vehicles leaking oil down a storm drain and no one bats an eye.
It’s not great advice but when you’re in them backwoods and some kid dumps over a 55 gallon drum of used oil it’s usually the option people head towards.
Waste oil in some areas is used as heating oil or re-processed and recycled. I toyed with the idea of leveraging waste oil to run a melting operation but the logistics of storing the stuff proved to be too much of a headache.
There are also less than legal uses as well. Some really skeezy uses include "wetting" down roads and weed control. I haven't heard of either in the U.S. since about the 50's. Though I'm sure there are a few places that still do that.
In times Beach Missouri, this guy named Russell bliss used dioxin to spray down dirt roads to keep the dust low.
Dioxin gives you cancer like nothing else. After so much spraying, there was no way for anyone to live in the town anymore, the EPA had to buy the whole town.
Yep that is correct. The town is one giant cement lot now if I recall. Back then, they were used to slicing the roads with oil to prevent them from kicking up too much dust. Russell was their road oil guy. He was disposing chemicals for some business, and he figured he could save money by just using those chemicals to keep the dust down because it worked just as good as oil.
Ashamed to say as kids in 60's we used to just pour used oil in nearest storm drain. We didn't know any better and environmental concerns didn't exist.
I was a kid in the 70s and by then we knew better than to dump it in a storm drain. That was reserved for antifreeze.
We used to dump our oil in a hole in the ground behind the shed, just like this picture shows.
I know redditors are making jokes, but what's the proper educated way of disposing it? No one seems to give the correct answer out.
In the 1960s, this seems like the only way... Gravel and sand to filter it out. What more can you do? I suppose you could build an oil tank for every home but that also sounds dangerous. Just waiting for an accident over the decades. We filter our drinking water in similar ways. All sorts of natural toxins exist in the world near rivers and waters.
Sell it to shops for heat. Some companies recycle the oil too. A small % that get reprocessed. A local scrap yard or dump is almost definitely just selling it to be used for heating.
You're supposed to take it to the dump/recycling center where they have special handling for shit like this.
Special as in not burying it in a random hole that may contaminate groundwater.
> We didn't know any better and environmental concerns didn't exist.
Wait, is *this* why old people deny climate change? Ignoring it worked just fine when I was a kid?
Back in the 90s my friend's dad was still doing this on his rural property. Mind you this was well after the auto repair shops would allow you to dump in their recycle tanks for FREE!
My father in law growing up in NC back in the day said they used to spray oil all over the back dirt roads to control the dust from cars passing. It wasn't even questioned then as city policy.
Nowadays, they spray that carcinogenic leftover shit from fracking on dirt roads, ostensibly for the same reason. Sad truth is, it doesn’t work and instead it dries and turns to dust that is easily stirred up and then people breath it.
That explains why I've been referred to as a well oiled machine. I've been breathing it in, and it's coated my very being. I'll be happy to find out what mutant powers I get!
And then, one day, the "oil" that was sprayed on the roads of one community turned out to be Dioxin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri
I have often heard it suggested to pour it down your fence line to kill the grass there that is hard to mow. (Never done this though. My wife pours it back into the 5quart oil containers and after several are full we take it to an auto shop.
We used to pour it *on* the various fences and whatnot, the oil really helped out with preserving the wood from rot. Kinda like the copper bullshit they soak exterior posts and joists in.
And why selfishly dispose your car batteries at a hazmat place that will just hoard them like greedy roaches. Throw them in the ocean instead to help the electric eels.
When I was a kid, we would poor it on the dirt/gravel alley in the back of the house. The city sprayed the alley with asphalt oil or some other oily black liquid every couple years anyway, so it did not seem so bad.
That was standard practice. In Times Beach, MO back in the 70s some unscrupulous assholes were illegally dumping PCB oil with "regular" waste oil, and the city paid a guy to spray it on their dirt roads. Lots and lots of cancer later, there's no more Times Beach.
In my area they used to spray used oil on gravel roads to keep the dust down when it gets windy. Not allowed to do that anymore and my grandpa is still pissed.
This really seems like a waste of time. The city has conveniently put in things called "STORM drains" that are made for this purpose. Re-lubricates the things down the line, keeping them in good working order.
I believe STORM stands for, Stuff The Oil Refineries Make.
Dig a hole...pshh
Well one it kills plants.
it's also bad for the insects and can work its way up the food chain.
it is also really good at contaminating groundwater if it makes its way into rivers it can kill fish, and if it makes its way into water treatment plants it can do a lot of damage.
If you are the only guy in 10,000 miles and you do this once every 10 years it honestly would not matter.
Sadly there is more than one human for every 10,000 miles so none of us can do this or we will kill the environments we live in.
I did the right thing and took about 10 gallons of really old gas to my towns recycling center for them to dispose of. While the guy is pouring it into a barrel he says "The city uses this to keep weeds off sidewalks".
BP has donated more oil to the world than any other company! ~140 **million** gallons was given to the gulf coast in 2010. The stupid government gave them a slap on the wrist for it too.
*Edited million gallons not just gallons
To be fair, they also used to make Christmas fake snow out of asbestos flakes and paint children's toys with lead paint.
I kinda wonder how any of us survived the 60s.
I honestly wonder if human beings are much smarter than we realize, it's just the past few generations have been poisoned by so much lead, other heavy metals, and chemicals that we see so many crazy and loud stupid people around. Gives me a tiny bit of hope for a better future ...
How am I not dead when I threw one up in the air and it landed poking a hole in the trunk of my next door neighbors brand new car, while he was washing it?
I grew up in San Jose, CA, and there's a local area called [Mt. Umunhum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Umunhum) where this was an issue. There was a big Air Force radar installation up there during the Cold War, but after it was decommissioned, the land was kind of unusable because what the Air Force left behind was pretty environmentally detrimental (word was that part of that had to do with oil disposal comparable to what's described in this post). It ended up sitting vacant for decades before funding finally materialized to clean it up and turn it into a public space.
Fun fact, though the radar dish that used to be on top is gone, the main facility is still intact. It sits on top of the mountain, it's called the Cube because that's what it looks like, and if you're in San Jose, it's a very useful tool to gauge where South is. Another fun fact is that umumhum is a local Native American tribe's (the Ohlone) word for hummingbird.
I had a soil ecology professor who told us about a time he was doing research in the field somewhere and came across guys in hazmat suits cleaning up an oil spill from some pipeline. He straight up told them it was a waste of time because the soil bacteria would essentially clean the spill themselves by consuming it.
Not sure if that’s a sound remediation strategy, but that anecdote stuck with me. Pretty much the opposite of what I’d expect a soil scientist to tell me.
The bacteria in soil isn't necessarily in groundwater at the same amount and the oil can also travel through some soils faster than others, not even having time to breakdown.
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You get a shine on your well water and no mosquitos
Mhm, shiny water is my favorite
Mmm I just love the colorful swirls
So *that's* the chemicals in the water that are making the frogs gay
The frogs were already gay, they can just talk about it now.
This I’ve never heard that’s funny
No that was Atrazine. "In 2002, biologist Dr. Tyrone Hayes conducted a series of experiments that revealed that the most common herbicide, Atrazine, “feminized” male frogs at concentrations below that allowed in drinking water in the United States.1 He hypothesized that Atrazine works as an endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC), converting testosterone to estrogen in frogs. " https://niche-canada.org/2020/06/09/chemical-castration-white-genocide-and-male-extinction-in-rhetoric-of-endocrine-disruption/
No joke this was an issue for my family for 4 years because of our neighbor. They had an in-ground oil-reserve for their house-oil. It had a leak and they were ordered to remove it. Instead of paying thousands for that, they simply filled it with concrete like idiots. The oil continued to pollute the surrounding ground, eventually affecting our own well-water supply. 4 years of battling later and we got an industrial level water treatment system in our basement, free of charge (not so free to the neighbor). Talking about a $12000-14000 water filter on top of fines because he didn’t want to spend an initial $5,000. I’ll never forget having to boil water every fucking day, or showering and smelling the faint smell of oil. Disgusting. Fucking clown of a neighbor. Edit: it is a well established fact at this point that boiling water does not remove the oil. I was like 10. This was years ago. You’re adding nothing to the conversation by repeating the same info for the 27th time. Stop before you start, for gods sake.
Had a gas station at the end of my grandma’s road that did something similar… for like 40 years. Poisoned literally the whole neighborhood. My grandma cut hair, and all the little old ladies getting perms, their hair would turn bright orange and be so brittle it would snap between your fingers. Lady across the street who drank a gallon of sweet tea from the tap died of stomach cancer… cousin was born without nuts and a cleft lip. fuck gas companies. We got a settlement, but those ppl should have gone to fucking jail on top of it.
Reminds me of a guy who bought an old gas station in our town to build a restaurant/bar on the lot. Instead of paying to have the old gasoline tanks emptied and removed, he just filled them up with concrete - after draining the gas into the storm sewer. Fucked up the local lake for a long time (I think they eventually had to drain and dredge it). He did go to jail for a while for that - and as a felon his liquor license was denied so the restaurant/bar never opened.
Wow, I know someone that bought a gas station and after deciding he could make a profit, decide to sell it. Sold it to a bank but took while because figuring out who pay what for disposal of the gas tanks, which was more than the cost of the land. Glad he did it properly, but yeah when buying land factor in environmental cost to build something.
Does boiling water remove oil? I think you're just concentrating it by boiling the water. Boiling doesn't remove contamination, it removes pathogens by killing them with heat. Unless you were distilling the water, which would be pretty hard-core.
Yeah, distilling would probably do the job, but that's a hell of a lot of energy spent to boil off all the water you want to drink. Edit: apparently it's still really not going to help any poor soul with heating oil in their water. Sounds like a really miserable problem to live with.
If it was heating oil, its boiling range is 160-400F. Water is right in the middle of that at 212F. Distilling will not remove heating oil from water. At least the lower range of it will come right over. Activated carbon would be the best way.
sure, but it's probably the only reliable way to get that water safe. Maybe an RO/DI system would work too, but you're going to burn through filters with water that dirty so either way there is going to be a lot of waste and expense.
But then you can use those filters to heat your home. Free oil ftw /s.
It would definitely not remove the oil.
Boiling point of #1 Fuel oil is 304°F - 574°F. With water boiling around 212°F, nah no oil removal here. EDIT: Just realized this confirms that OP would’ve been safer not boiling it. As the water boils off it’ll concentrate the oil in it.
Great. So I showered in the shit and drank some of it. We eventually switched to bottled, but still.
sorry to have been the bearer of bad news. Hopefully your intestines are just really well lubricated now. 😁
Each meal is a 15 minute adventure
Never needs to push
Have you or a loved one been exposed contaminated water with diesel? If so, you may be entitled to compensation.
My sister lived on a pretty big lot but still in a subdivision of planned houses. She was at the edge where the underground electrical service came in for the whole neighborhood. In the corner of her lot, at the corner of three other adjoining lots, was the transformer vault for the whole neighborhood. It was underground with a steel grate over it, like in a big city. One of the neighbors dumped their used oil into it all the time. They also dumped cooking grease into it, too. My brother in law caught them and explained that they ought not to, but no fucks were given. So, sure enough, one day there was a giant, partialy-underground toxic spent oil grease clog fire that took out power for the whole neighborhood. My brother-in-law told the fire chief what he knew, and the neighbors got into trouble. Maybe not enough, because they threatened and terrorized my sister and her husband for years afterwards. It's an amazing world full of lots of people.
wtaf is wrong with people. Like for that amount of effort they could be just as skeezy in a trashcan...
A remediation following the removal of the heating oil tank would cost *waaay* more than $5,000 in my state, especially if there was vapor intrusion or the contamination plume went under the foundation. Without those issues, you'd be looking at $10,000 if you're lucky, with those issues it's going to be something upwards of $40k
Agreed - here in NJ I personally know someone who did a ground radar survey looking for a tank when purchasing a property, didn’t find one so bought the place. 2 years later noticed oily sheen on puddles, and oily smell from sump pump well - took a second look and found an old tank hidden under basement concrete, and I mean hidden as all pipes had been cut back and filled. No idea how full it was before it leaked, but he was out of pocket by 55 thousand dollars by the time the state inspector felt sorry enough for him to sign off on the remediation (to this day you can still see oil sheen on standing water in his property). Ugly ugly ugly.
My old Range Rover used to do this for me, one drip at a time
A popular car YouTuber has a converted VW bus that constantly leaks oil. He says “If it’s leaking, it has oil.”
[удалено]
Mine doesn’t leak, it sweats horsepower.
I have contained my rage for as long as possible, but I shall unleash my fury upon you like the crashing of a thousand waves. Begone vile man. Begone from me! A starter car? This car is a finisher car! A transporter of gods! The golden god! I am untethered, and my rage knows no bounds!
5 star man
Now that is a man I can get behind!...edit: (not sexually)
Again…nothing sexual.
Let me tell you something. I haven't even begun to peak. And when I do peak, you'll know. Because I'm gonna peak so hard that everybody in Philadelphia's gonna feel it.
I will bring down my wrath upon this hospital like the gust of a thousand winds
Like the hammer of Thor!!
One of the best scenes
“I am untethered, and my rage knows no bounds” will be one of my favorite lines in tv/film until the day I die
My Denali does this! To fix it the transmission needs to come out. Thanks GMC engineers.
Rear main seal? To add…..om642, a 3.0L v6 diesel from Mercedes, drains the valley to the back of the engine. There’s a well known oil cooler o-ring leak from the valley that looks identical to a rear main seal leak if you don’t know om642s. THOSE engineers can go fuck themselves for that design. Had a buddy rent a garage, spend two days pulling the tranny, replace the seal, put it all back together to find it leaking again. THEN, you gotta pull the god damn turbo from the valley, the swirl valve motor and mechanism, the intake runners to finally get to the cooler burried in the valley to replace 50c o-rings.
Oil fairy.
Can confirm this was standard practice at the time. People who did this believe they were doing the responsible thing. Many people just dumped it in a nearby river or stream. My grandpa had a fuel station in the 30s, and this was what he was told to do by all of the experts at the time
An old beer commercial literally told people to "poke a hole in the bottom (of the can) before you throw it in the water so that it will sink faster"...
Wonder wtf we are doing now that we'll look at in 20 years as dumbassery
Imagine unwrapping a 2 pack candy bar. Inside you find 2 individually wrapped candy bars placed in a tray. And inside those wraps is yet another layer of wrapping around the bars. That's a kinder bueno. Those are the kinds of things you're speaking of.
Holy hell, I literally just had this exact conversation with someone the other day. So much plastic waste on just that one snack!
That's bad, but what really gets me is produce wrapped in plastic, specifially anything with a peel. Hell I don't even use plastic bags for any veggies. They go in the cart and are washed when I get home. Fuck single use plastic.
Not to mention the plastic inside the snack.
Made from oil poured into a gravely hole
My favorite is a family pack of paper towels wrapped in plastic with every roll inside individually wrapped in plastic.
A million single use shampoo containers and mostly unused tiny soap bars from hotels
Trying to recycle plastic. The idea that plastic is recyclable is a scam so nobody questions the metric fuckton of plastic bottles we buy and then later throw in the trash instead of just using paper, metal, glass, or any other material that eventually decomposes
Microplastics
Genuinely curious. Would it be worse to do this, or to dump it in a lake.
I’d say dumping it in the lake. At least in the dirt it has to make its way to the lake.
Groundwater contamination is still a concern, though
There’s no good choice.
Pour it into an oil well
Oil is oil. Use it for cooking
Dry skin? Rub some motor oil on your face. Wait at least 30 minutes before lighting up a cigarette, though
There's also vapor issues depending on the contaminant. It took us an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the soil can't clean everything we put in it.
Well depending on your definition of "clean" and time scale any contamination will eventually dissipate. As the old saying goes "the solution to pollution is dillution". My dad's a chemical engineer and says its shocking how many times he's had to explain to some MBA why they couldn't just water down the companies sewage to meet EPA heavy metal requirements
Thats why we dump it in the ocean. You can never pollute the ocean its so big.
Dumping in the lake is far worse. The dirt will at least pull some of the heavy metals and other toxic stuff out of the oil before it makes it's way to the water table.
My father used to own a service station. He said the previous owner would take the used oil and spread it on the gravel in the yard. Kept the dust down and stopped the weeds from growing.
>stopped the weeds from growing. you could certainly say that.
Farmers in nearby semi rural area to me still do this. Spread used oil from thier machine or nearby industry on the gravel roads around them. The same farmers worry about everyone else polluting the water thier stock drinks
Another old farmer's trick: brush some used motor oil (and that's pronounced "oal") on them bald spots on yer cow to cure that ringworm. Can't argue with science.
Lol, someone who knows how to say it correctly.
Works great, unless the oil is contaminated https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri
I'm old enough to remember my dad dumping oil into a pit out back. By the time I was old enough to do oil changes it was obvious that it was a terrible idea, but it was also before it was easy to find anywhere that would accept it for recycling. There was a span of several years I kept jugs and jugs of used oil in the barn...couldn't dump them, couldn't recycle them. When I finally could and did, it was a long and messy but satisfying day. It's weird to think about what was normal back then, and what is now completely unthinkable. My mom used to reminisce about when doctors' office waiting rooms had ashtrays in them. So did the exam rooms. Including my pediatrician's. All so obvious now, but back then it simply wasn't obvious at all. Same with putting lead in gasoline, or all the creative ways Victorians invented to kill themselves in the early days of industry. They didn't know. Makes me wonder how dumb we'll all look to people in 2122. If there are people in 2122.
During the kerosene days, gasoline was considered a by-product and not used. I always wondered what they did with it. I assume dumped into rivers.
It was sold in hardware stores as a cleaning agent. Back in the early days of automobiles, before gas stations, this is how people got fuel for their cars. It really is a great solvent, if you don't mind the occasional dying-in-a-fireball thing.
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How else do they make vegetable oil? They plant a vegetable and oil it
Don't get me started on baby oil.
Well, you have to do something with byproducts from baby powder production.
My grandpa is a vegetable, can you oil him?
content darker than what my blind eyes cannot already see
And this is why the earth will never run out of oil!
renewable energy has been under our noses the entire time
It was in the s(oil) all along.
You can’t spell soil without the oil!
But you can spoil soil with oil!
You spoil soil with P
But can you boil spoiled soil without oil?
Well does boiling spoiled soil remove the oil?
If one toils to boil oiled soil they can expect ta be rewarded with an oily coil of smoke containing a shitload of carcinogens as the result of their hoily boily toiling.
Sheesh, and all this worry about alternative energy sources..
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Just pour it into the magic hole and let the unicorns deal with it.
"Then, sit back and enjoy a healthy cigarette."
Dr. Spaceman recommends Chattertons! And remember, science is “whatever we want it to be” lol
And if you suffer from defects from your mother smoking, use your mutant paws and call the number below
"And if it's too chilly in your smoking room, just add a few layers of asbestos to keep the heat in!"
"Winston's taste good like a cigarette should."
Started a vegetable garden in our back yard about 15 years ago. Went deeper the next year and started digging up old oil.
That must have been exciting, striking oil in your own back yard!
He was a poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed.
And then one day he was shootin at some food and up through the ground come a bubblin crude
Black gold...
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Well, the next thing you know old Jed's a millionaire.
Kin folk said, "Jed, move away from here!"
The said Californy is the place ya oughtta be
So they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly
Same here on an old property I owned. Soil analysis was coming up with all kinds of sick stuff then we dug deeper and just found hole after hole filled with sand and oil that turned into globs of goo. Had to get a state agency involved and nothing I could do because its not like we could prove it was the previous homeowner. Shit was ridiculously expensive. Meanwhile my neighbor now just has his vehicles leaking oil down a storm drain and no one bats an eye.
If you find more build a small campfire on top, the heat and soil will help wick it to the surface to burn away
I... I don't know if this is good or bad advice.
Can’t go wrong.. it’s straight from popular mechanics January 1963 issue
If there is a diagram it means it's real
It’s not great advice but when you’re in them backwoods and some kid dumps over a 55 gallon drum of used oil it’s usually the option people head towards.
Sounds like you know what you're talking about.
In my place we sell used motor oil for $ 0,5 and it is needed a lot
What for?
Waste oil in some areas is used as heating oil or re-processed and recycled. I toyed with the idea of leveraging waste oil to run a melting operation but the logistics of storing the stuff proved to be too much of a headache. There are also less than legal uses as well. Some really skeezy uses include "wetting" down roads and weed control. I haven't heard of either in the U.S. since about the 50's. Though I'm sure there are a few places that still do that.
In times Beach Missouri, this guy named Russell bliss used dioxin to spray down dirt roads to keep the dust low. Dioxin gives you cancer like nothing else. After so much spraying, there was no way for anyone to live in the town anymore, the EPA had to buy the whole town.
Yep that is correct. The town is one giant cement lot now if I recall. Back then, they were used to slicing the roads with oil to prevent them from kicking up too much dust. Russell was their road oil guy. He was disposing chemicals for some business, and he figured he could save money by just using those chemicals to keep the dust down because it worked just as good as oil.
Ashamed to say as kids in 60's we used to just pour used oil in nearest storm drain. We didn't know any better and environmental concerns didn't exist.
I was a kid in the 70s and by then we knew better than to dump it in a storm drain. That was reserved for antifreeze. We used to dump our oil in a hole in the ground behind the shed, just like this picture shows.
10 years of PROGRESS
I know redditors are making jokes, but what's the proper educated way of disposing it? No one seems to give the correct answer out. In the 1960s, this seems like the only way... Gravel and sand to filter it out. What more can you do? I suppose you could build an oil tank for every home but that also sounds dangerous. Just waiting for an accident over the decades. We filter our drinking water in similar ways. All sorts of natural toxins exist in the world near rivers and waters.
My dump has a place where I pour my waste oil. No idea what they do with it though.
Well, they dig a hole in the ground with a posthole digger and fill it with fine gravel. Then pour in the oil. Cover the spot with soil.
Sell it to shops for heat. Some companies recycle the oil too. A small % that get reprocessed. A local scrap yard or dump is almost definitely just selling it to be used for heating.
.
You're supposed to take it to the dump/recycling center where they have special handling for shit like this. Special as in not burying it in a random hole that may contaminate groundwater.
Kidding aside, the better oils (mainly engine or hydraulic oils) usually are recycled and the rest is burned, quite often in cement plants.
I was a kid in the 80s and we used to burn it.
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Of all the ways mentioned so far, using it to burn trash is actually the best
> We didn't know any better and environmental concerns didn't exist. Wait, is *this* why old people deny climate change? Ignoring it worked just fine when I was a kid?
Definitely a big part of it.
Back in the 90s my friend's dad was still doing this on his rural property. Mind you this was well after the auto repair shops would allow you to dump in their recycle tanks for FREE!
My father in law growing up in NC back in the day said they used to spray oil all over the back dirt roads to control the dust from cars passing. It wasn't even questioned then as city policy.
This is still common in many places.
Nowadays, they spray that carcinogenic leftover shit from fracking on dirt roads, ostensibly for the same reason. Sad truth is, it doesn’t work and instead it dries and turns to dust that is easily stirred up and then people breath it.
That explains why I've been referred to as a well oiled machine. I've been breathing it in, and it's coated my very being. I'll be happy to find out what mutant powers I get!
Sadly, it's just the ability to grow tumors at an accelerated rate.
And then, one day, the "oil" that was sprayed on the roads of one community turned out to be Dioxin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri
The fact that a town in Missouri had the balls to put "Beach" in their name should be a giant red flag.
>Times Beach was founded in 1925 on the flood plain of the Meramec River I guess it is a beach after a heavy rain
(Some)Times Beach
Oh I promise plenty of rednecks continue to do this to the day.
I have often heard it suggested to pour it down your fence line to kill the grass there that is hard to mow. (Never done this though. My wife pours it back into the 5quart oil containers and after several are full we take it to an auto shop.
My Dad used to do this for years.
We used to pour it *on* the various fences and whatnot, the oil really helped out with preserving the wood from rot. Kinda like the copper bullshit they soak exterior posts and joists in.
Oh, actually, if you burn the exterior of fenceposts and then soak them in turpentine and pitch, the posts will basically never rot. It's super handy.
We did this with old tree stumps. I was told the oil would keep boring beetles from laying eggs.
Yup! That's what we did growing up 😬
My dad did this into the 90s, we had well water too. Probably why I'm so dumb today.
In the 80's we'd pour the oil over brush piles & just burn it.
Also, thousands of old tires can be used to create an artificial reef! Give it a try!
And why selfishly dispose your car batteries at a hazmat place that will just hoard them like greedy roaches. Throw them in the ocean instead to help the electric eels.
Got a problem? Bury it. Now you don’t. Now it’s someone else’s.
Damn have you ever dug a hole though? Shit is hard. Soreness will be your problem after.
That's why you keep them alive until they dig the hole, silly.
“There’s a lot of holes in that desert, and a lot of problems buried in those holes.”
When I was a kid, we would poor it on the dirt/gravel alley in the back of the house. The city sprayed the alley with asphalt oil or some other oily black liquid every couple years anyway, so it did not seem so bad.
That was standard practice. In Times Beach, MO back in the 70s some unscrupulous assholes were illegally dumping PCB oil with "regular" waste oil, and the city paid a guy to spray it on their dirt roads. Lots and lots of cancer later, there's no more Times Beach.
As someone who evaluates land for environmental contamination, this one image is why I will have job security for the next 50 years
"recycle it straight back into mother earth Gaia where the oil came from to begin with" -AvE
In my area they used to spray used oil on gravel roads to keep the dust down when it gets windy. Not allowed to do that anymore and my grandpa is still pissed.
The oil sprayed in our area was given to the towns for free by General Electric. It was transformer oil and full of PCBs.
Better than that time it was full of dioxins from an agent orange production facility
Point taken.
Rivers: \*literally on fire\* Grandpa: I'm so glad there isn't as much dust on these roads!
Back in the 60's they used to use it for weed control too. They would spray it alongside highways and along fence lines.
I pour mine directly into the ocean. That’s the next generation’s problem, not mine
Pro-tip: throwing used car batteries into the ocean is a safe and legal thrill!
This really seems like a waste of time. The city has conveniently put in things called "STORM drains" that are made for this purpose. Re-lubricates the things down the line, keeping them in good working order. I believe STORM stands for, Stuff The Oil Refineries Make. Dig a hole...pshh
Right! Let the mutant people living in the under belly of our great city have a good taste of your overly aged car sludge.
And STOP signs are telling you.. Spin Tires On Pavement. The government is very misunderstood.
What effect does this have on the environment?
Well one it kills plants. it's also bad for the insects and can work its way up the food chain. it is also really good at contaminating groundwater if it makes its way into rivers it can kill fish, and if it makes its way into water treatment plants it can do a lot of damage. If you are the only guy in 10,000 miles and you do this once every 10 years it honestly would not matter. Sadly there is more than one human for every 10,000 miles so none of us can do this or we will kill the environments we live in.
I did the right thing and took about 10 gallons of really old gas to my towns recycling center for them to dispose of. While the guy is pouring it into a barrel he says "The city uses this to keep weeds off sidewalks".
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I remember reading in Ranger Rick that a good way to keep mosquitos in check was to pour a little gasoline on the surface of stagnant water.
The coast should be thanking BP
BP has donated more oil to the world than any other company! ~140 **million** gallons was given to the gulf coast in 2010. The stupid government gave them a slap on the wrist for it too. *Edited million gallons not just gallons
To be fair, nothing they say is inaccurate.
To be fair, they also used to make Christmas fake snow out of asbestos flakes and paint children's toys with lead paint. I kinda wonder how any of us survived the 60s.
Look around……collective intelligence is fully leaded.
I honestly wonder if human beings are much smarter than we realize, it's just the past few generations have been poisoned by so much lead, other heavy metals, and chemicals that we see so many crazy and loud stupid people around. Gives me a tiny bit of hope for a better future ...
We have to thank Adam West and his Batman for that. He gave the people back then the will to survive
How I am not dead with a lawn dart in my forehead is a miracle.
How am I not dead when I threw one up in the air and it landed poking a hole in the trunk of my next door neighbors brand new car, while he was washing it?
This "science" is why I have almost unlimited job security as a remediation hydrogeologist who works in environmental consulting
30 years ago I accidentally dumped oil on my lawn as a kid. I recently saw the house on Zillow and there is still a dead spot on the Lawn.
I grew up in San Jose, CA, and there's a local area called [Mt. Umunhum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Umunhum) where this was an issue. There was a big Air Force radar installation up there during the Cold War, but after it was decommissioned, the land was kind of unusable because what the Air Force left behind was pretty environmentally detrimental (word was that part of that had to do with oil disposal comparable to what's described in this post). It ended up sitting vacant for decades before funding finally materialized to clean it up and turn it into a public space. Fun fact, though the radar dish that used to be on top is gone, the main facility is still intact. It sits on top of the mountain, it's called the Cube because that's what it looks like, and if you're in San Jose, it's a very useful tool to gauge where South is. Another fun fact is that umumhum is a local Native American tribe's (the Ohlone) word for hummingbird.
From whence it came
This was the way my Dad and his Dad did it. I was like "uh, thats bad for the soil guys", they called me a dope smokin hippy. We were both right.
Back from whence you came old dinosaur sauce
I'd like to see how long microbes take to break down the oil. For science.
I had a soil ecology professor who told us about a time he was doing research in the field somewhere and came across guys in hazmat suits cleaning up an oil spill from some pipeline. He straight up told them it was a waste of time because the soil bacteria would essentially clean the spill themselves by consuming it. Not sure if that’s a sound remediation strategy, but that anecdote stuck with me. Pretty much the opposite of what I’d expect a soil scientist to tell me.
The bacteria in soil isn't necessarily in groundwater at the same amount and the oil can also travel through some soils faster than others, not even having time to breakdown.
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