No? Well, good, cause they’re not selling any reused stuff.



But Safety-Kleen is. We’re all familiar with recycling newspapers, aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles, but most folks are not aware that motor oil can be and is recycled. Recycling used oil keeps it out of soils, waterways and ground water supplies and gets it back into action lubricating parts and improving efficiency.

Your old motor oil has value even after it’s been drained from your engine. It can be reprocessed and used in furnaces for heat or in power plants to generate electricity for homes, schools, and businesses. Better still, it can be sent to a refinery for reprocessing re-refined into new engine oil. This saves new oil from being pumped from the ground.

Safety-Kleen collects used oil from thousands of places and recycles every gallon of the dirty oil back to its original state. If you have a lot of used oil, they’ll come to you to get it. If you have 5 gallons or less you can get detailed information on drop-off locations and other useful recycling tips for used oil and used filters on usedoil.com.



According to their website, Safety-Kleen returns more than 140 million gallons of used oil to the marketplace as fresh new motor oil every year. Their state-of-the-art processes allow them to recycle and reuse oil indefinitely with no loss of quality. Oil re-refining saves greenhouse gases and heavy metal emissions when compared to burning used oil as fuel. Re-refining is a much better way to manage used oil. It’s easier on the environment and transforms oil into a renewable resource.

Here’s how it works:



More than 200 million gallons of dirty, used oil from auto garages and factories arrives at their re-refinery each year. The trucks disgorge their loads and the recycling process begins. The oil is tested to weed out chemical and physical contaminants. Water in the oil is evaporated out and cleaned.

Lightweight chemicals are extracted for reuse. Then the used oil goes to tall recovery towers where glycol and light fuels are atmospherically separated and collected. The glycol is eventually reprocessed as an automotive grade fuel. Then heavier fuels are removed for industrial use. The used oil is then subjected to heat and vacuum processes which extract middle weight oils to make fuel for industrial heating. Then heavy materials are reclaimed for multiple uses. The heaviest impurities are removed in a complex series of processes. The used oil is actually vaporized in an extreme vacuum and then condensed. Different materials are then separated from the oil like heavy oil for industrial use, such as asphalt extenders. Finally, the remaining oil is treated with hydrogen to remove sulfur, nitrogen, chlorine, heavy metals and other impurities. This step also corrects any issues with odor, color and corrosion performance. The purified oil is then separated by weight – cleaner than the day it was first refined and ready to return to the marketplace.

Safety-Kleen manufactures everything from recycled automotive motor oil to a wide variety of diesel, engine and lubricant oils, all to like new specs.

So whether you are a mechanic with lots of used motor oil coming out of cars every day, or a "do-it-yourselfer" your oil can be sent into the used oil recycling system. Next time you change your own oil, remember, you can make a difference by recycling the oil from your car, truck, motorcycle, boat, recreational vehicle or lawnmower. By dropping off your used motor oil today you help prevent pollution and conserve energy for a safer and healthier tomorrow. And you don’t have to buy a barrel of oil from those other guys up at the top.