Not Ordinary Garbage!

ON FRIDAY, March 24, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. As a result, 11 million gallons [42 million L] of crude oil gushed into the water. The accident threatened the livelihoods of local fishermen, polluted hundreds of miles [km] of shoreline, and destroyed thousands of birds and sea mammals.

The Exxon Valdez incident continues to stir the emotions of environmentally concerned people. However, a more insidious “oil spill” takes place daily. And likely this is happening in your own neighborhood!

According to Consumer Reports, people who personally change their automobile’s engine oil discard between 200 million [750 million L] and 400 million gallons [1.5 billion L] of waste oil every year. Reportedly, “only 10 to 14 percent of that oil is disposed of properly.” This small percentage of waste oil gets recycled, as other useful products can be made from it. But what happens to the rest? Likely, car owners are simply dumping it as ordinary garbage.

Every year millions of gallons [liters] of waste oil end up in the ground, in streams, or in sewers. It would take at least 25 Exxon Valdez spills to generate such an amount of oil! But used oil, as well as other automobile waste, such as antifreeze, brake fluid, and transmission oil, is not ordinary garbage. It is worse.

Consumer Reports notes that if the oil gets “into drinking water, there can be serious consequences: One gallon of used oil can make a million gallons of fresh water undrinkable, and a mere pint [0.5 L] of oil can produce a slick that covers an acre [0.4 ha] of water.”