You asked for information about motor oil container recycling programs.

SUMMARY

California appears to be the leader in motor oil container recycling, with programs operating in about seven locations. We focus in this report on programs in Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Plumas counties, which appear typical. We also report on an oil container recycling plan proposed this year by the Ontario (Canada) Used Oil Management Association as part of a comprehensive used oil recycling program. The Ontario plan was not adopted.

OIL CONTAINER RECYCLING

About 400 million quarts of oil are sold in California each year. According to Ken Hatch, president of Green Flame Services of Modesto, CA, one of two firms that specialize in oil container recycling in that state, an “empty” plastic quart container of motor oil typically contains between one to two ounces of residual oil. When discarded, these 400 million containers would therefore contain more than 3 million gallons of residual oil. These contaminated and unrecyclable plastic containers are usually dumped in landfills, where the containers may leak. (In Connecticut most of these containers would be burned at resource recovery facilities). Recycling used oil containers not only removes them from the waste stream but has the added benefit of preventing leaking oil containers from contaminating other recyclables, Hatch says.

California’s oil container recycling programs use a process that “granulates” the containers, reducing them to chips, which are placed in 55-gallon drums. The drums are then brought to a central processing plant where the oil is extracted and the pellets cleaned for reuse. Hatch, whose company now operates the granulators in seven California counties and three cities, says each drum contains about 1,600 quart-bottles and eight to 12 gallons of residual oil.

CALIFORNIA’S USED OIL RECYCLING PROGRAMS

Santa Cruz/Monterey Oil Bottle Recycling Program

The California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) manages California’s solid waste stream. Among other things, it issues noncompetitive block grants to help local governments establish or enhance permanent, sustainable used oil recycling programs.

In 2003, CIWMB awarded Ecology Action, a nonprofit environmental organization, a two-year, $ 264,000 grant for three projects, including $ 163,000 for a motor oil container recycling program in Santa Cruz County and the eastern portion of Monterey County.

The oil container recycling project includes a pilot program to collect and process motor oil bottles separately from other recyclables. Data gathered from this pilot program will be used demonstrate to local governments what would be involved in developing a long-term, region-wide oil container recycling program.

The pilot program involves a three-pronged approach to recycle oil containers through: (1) collection sites at auto parts stores, garages, and quick change oil businesses; (2) permanent collection facilities, such as recycling centers and landfills; and (3) residential curbside recycling. Ecology Action expects this system to collect about 270,000 used oil bottles containing about 2,160 gallons of residual oil during the two-year grant period.

In the permanent collection portion of the program, residents bring their used oil containers directly to a permanent collection facility, where Green Flame granulates them.

In the program’s private business portion, service station, garage and quick-lube employees place used oil containers generated by those businesses in bins at their various locations. Green Flame goes to those businesses to granulate the containers.

In the curbside recycling portion of the program, residents along certain routes place their empty oil bottles in their recycling bins with other plastic, glass, and metal containers. All the recyclables are taken to a material recovery facility (MRF), where the oil containers are separated from the other material. The bottles are counted, weighed and stored until there are enough for Green Flame to granulate.

Project manager Collette Streight will compile data from the curbside recycling portion of the program when this aspect of the program ends in January 2005. The grant for the other two portions of the program ends in March 2005. Streight says she would like to see all three types of collections continue, but says the curbside collection portion may be too expensive for local governments.

Plumas County Program

Bob Boschee, coordinator of the oil recycling program in California’s rural Plumas County (population about 25,000), says that county has been recycling bottles for about two and one-half years. Do-it-yourselfers bring used oil bottles to large wheeled carts located at transfer stations and recycling centers. Green Flame employees granulate the containers with two small county-owned granulators. Boschee estimates the county collects between 12 and 14 55-gallon drums of used oil containers a year. He estimates the program costs about $ 2,500, which it receives as part of a CIWMB grant.

ONTARIO USED OIL MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION PROPOSAL

The Ontario Used Oil Management Association (OUOMA), which represents large retailers and the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, has proposed a plan to increase the collection and diversion of used oil, used oil filters, and used oil containers generated in that Canadian province. According to Glenda Gies, executive director of Waste Diversion Ontario (WDO), which develops, implements and operates the province’s waste diversion programs, the current Ontario used oil recovery plan does not provide for the recycling of oil containers, except for a few municipalities that collect them through curbside recycling.

OUOMA’s proposal, made in its June 14, 2004 report, estimated that 4. 43 million kilograms (9. 7 million pounds) of plastic oil containers were sold in Ontario in 2002. It estimated the current used oil container recovery rate to be 3%, and set as a five-year goal collecting half the 4. 2 million kilograms (9. 2 million pounds) of used oil containers not currently being collected.

The containers would be recycled for use as (1) a fuel for cement kilns; (2) a raw material for the manufacture of plastic products for use in curbstones and retaining walls; and (3) a recycled plastic resin for use in bottles, drainage tile, and similar products.

OUOMA’s proposed program, based on similar programs operating in some western Canadian provinces, would pay financial incentives to registered used oil material collectors. The incentives would be funded by an “environmental handling charge” of $ 0. 05 per liter of container size. The charge would be paid by OUOMA member manfacturers, wholesalers, retailers and others who sell or distribute oil, oil containers, or oil filters.

However, the WDO board of directors voted in July to not recommend the OUOMA plan for several reasons, among them a concern it would indirectly promote burning of used oil.

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