Changing your car's oil is a great feeling, right? You save money, you feel self-reliant, and you get to look at the black goop you just drained and think, "Yep, that did some serious work in there." Or, you might even be changing the engine oil because your car has been sitting around for too long. Then comes the question most DIYers don't think about until they're standing in the garage holding a jug of it: What now? That used motor oil isn't trash, and it definitely isn't something you'd pour
down the storm drain (unless you sadistically enjoy committing environmental crimes and wrecking local waterways).
Motor oil doesn't really "wear out." It just gets dirty. That means it can be cleaned, re-refined, and turned into usable oil again, over and over. The U.S. EPA estimates that it takes only one gallon of used oil to produce the same 2.5 quarts of lubricating oil that would otherwise require 42 gallons of crude oil. That's a massive win for resources, but only if it actually gets to a recycling facility instead of your lawn, drain, or trash.
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From Motor Oil Drain Pan To Detox
Once you drop off used motor oil at an auto parts store, a used oil collector (they usually have collection tanks located at landfills, waste transfer stations, work depots), or a recycling center, used oil goes on a field trip, usually to a collection facility. Here, the sludge gets pumped into storage tanks and undergoes pre-treatment mainly to remove water, known as dewatering, before it's shipped off for processing to a specialized used oil recycler.
Once water is separated from the oil, the next step is removing the junk it picked up inside your engine, which includes contaminants, metals, additives, and acids. If you've ever wondered why your old oil is dark, gritty, and smells like a burnt gas station, that's exactly why. After this, the next step helps remove finer particles.
The cleaned product can then take one of two paths: burned as industrial fuel for heat, or re-refined into base oil for new lubricants. The latter is the gold standard; you're basically getting fresh motor oil without drilling a single drop of crude, but both keep used oil out of the environment. Either way, it beats the alternative of letting it seep into the ground and poison groundwater.
The Closed Loop For Motor Oil And Why It Matters
Re-refining gives used oil a second lease of life as high-quality motor oil, transmission fluid, or hydraulic oil. The base stock made from re-refined oil has to meet the same American Petroleum Institute (API) standards as virgin base stock — meaning there's no penalty for using it in your engine, and it is just as good as virgin oil.
Your car's old oil should ideally become new oil, completing a closed-loop system that's both resource-efficient and cleaner for the planet. Every year, American DIY oil changers ditch about 180 million gallons of motor oil that could be recovered, and only a measly 20 million gallons actually get recycled. If all of it made its way back into the system, we're talking enough energy to power 360,000 homes or 96 million quarts of recycled premium motor oil. Instead, a huge chunk of it ends up where it shouldn't. Used motor oil is behind nearly 40% of the gunk polluting U.S. waterways, and it only takes a single gallon of the stuff to foul a million gallons of fresh water.
That's why the "dump it behind the shed" crowd is not just lazy, but outright dangerous. Let's not forget the oil filters that can be recycled, too, and put to good use again. Recycle it right, and the stuff you drained out of your car could be keeping another engine alive in just a few months. Who knows, it might make it back to your engine, too.
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