1963 used engine oil disposal article - photo

[Duke_of_URL]

As a kid, I'd pour used engine oil all around the fence to keep grass from growing. That was back when edging was done by hand with a scissors. Ya know what, that grass grew back every year... so much for bio-hazard garbage. The earth eats everything, and we can do nothing about it.

[TrickieDickie]

It occurred to me one day that after two world wars the industrial wastes created to manufacture countless tons of munitions spent on land and sea, so many ships sunk in the Atlantic and Pacific, at that time 3 nuclear weapons detonated plus thousands since yet we are still here. To me the real threat are the mountains of garbage on our lands and the islands of garbage floating in our oceans... can you imagine what has sunk to the bottom. Yes the Earth is resilient but we all have to live in the garbage we create

[nova_robotics]

islands of garbage floating in our oceans... can you imagine what has sunk to the bottom.

You have no idea. I'm designing a bunch of stuff to reduce ghost fishing and working with a number of companies in that field. It's just totally crazy what's down there. The government gave out a bunch of contracts to start cleaning up a bunch of the junk from the ocean, so a local company went out with all these expensive underwater drones and side-scan sonar to try to find debris underwater. The just put all of it away after a few hours. There was no need. No matter where they put the hook in the water they would immediately hit something. They were telling me it was just unreal.

[marksbug]

thus the clean water issues....I remember my dad pulling the old 64 & newer dodges over a ditch just 30 feet from the fresh water well and draining the oil....he was a engineer....

[hemmjo]

I have done some mission work in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There is no trash collection of any kind. Some people burn their trash, others just toss it on the ground, where it ends up in the creeks, rivers, and the ocean. I have to imagine it is the same in most other countries with no infrastructure.

Even here in the US, the amount of trash along the roads is disgusting. I often carry a 5 gallon bucket and trash picker with me when I walk the dog. I have never failed to fill the bucket during a walk.

[marksbug]

when we used to go camping we always came back with a load after hikes. sometimes big but mostly not a lot. Some people do not care weather they live in a rat infested **** hole or not and dont care weather any body else does either. I've see this all over the world in my travels.it isant limited to any paticular culture or nation.

[Hoosiersmoker]

"It is crazy some of the things we used to do to get rid of things we no longer want. How many remember bathroom wall cabinet with the razor blade disposal slot in the back? "

My first house (built in '27) had an old medicine cabinet with one of those. It also had two 24" fluorescent lamps, one on each side and it was chrome and white steel. It was beautiful but getting a pretty pitted and faded. We thought about restoring it and going retro with the whole bathroom but couldn't find enough stuff at the time to pull it off. I remember tearing out that wall to replace the do-it-yourself plastering job and finding a 2 pound slug of old, rusty razor blades and an old, empty Prince Albert tobacco can! Turned out both were worthless, but interesting.

[Imabass]

My grandpa used this method sometimes. I remember as a kid (early 80's) helping my grandpa change the oil and he had me go pour out the old oil on the big pile of rocks. Hindsight today, that spot he poured it out was only 100' or so from his well.

He also reused the oil as chainsaw bar oil and lubrication on various old farm equipment.

[Duke_of_URL]

Nothing like putting it back where it came from!

Sadly in this country there aren't hydrocarbon conversion plants using the Fischer-Tropsch process on large scale, as South Africa developed (http://sasol.com) when the world boycotted S.A. under Apartheid.

[carl blum]

I knew a shop that would drip the used oil on a fire brick in their wood stove for heat.
Carl.