Used oil: An often overlooked resource

American Recycler, January 2010 - : "Long before it became widespread practice to recycle paper, plastics and other waste stream commodities, used oil was recycled to recover its innate heating value. Even though it’s dirty and exhausted of lubricity, a gallon of used oil contains 140,000 BTUs of energy, approximately the same heating value of a new gallon of oil.

Used oil is a broad category that includes mixes of crankcase oils, transmission and hydraulic fluids, and industrial oils of many grades and qualities. EPA defines used oil as any oil refined from crude or synthetic that has been used and thereby contaminated by physical or chemical impurities. It’s not publicly traded as a commodity. Most transactions are private and most people involved in the business are reluctant to talk about price or the volume distributed. Therefore, there is scant and conflicting data on this sector.

An EPA Material Characterization Paper published in December 2008 estimated the quantity of used oil generated annually at 1.35 billion gallons with 784.4 million gallons used as fuel, 160.7 million gallons re-refined and 200 million gallons going to landfills or illegally dumped. A long-time executive in the used oil business estimated that over 50 percent goes to industrial burning for energy, about 20 percent to re-refining into base lubricants and 15 to 18 percent to on-site heating.

Nobody knows how much is illegally dumped, but the consensus is that illegal disposal has decreased substantially over the past few decades. “Used oil is a big business today and grows with each hike in the price of a barrel of crude. Anyone foolish enough to dump it on the ground or down a storm sewer is not only subject to criminal penalties, but is also wasting a valuable commodity,” said Rob Stevens, president and CEO of EnergyLogic, a Nashville-based manufacturer of used oil furnaces and boilers."