What do you do with oily rags?

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SecondMonkey

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Recently I leased a large commercial shop mostly just to do the things I was doing in my overfilled garage at home. I've recently changed a lot of oil and as usual I'm left with a bunch of oil soaked paper towels.

At home, when I'm done changing the oil, I would normally just take them out back and burn them. I can't do that at my shop. And I know technically I'm supposed to store them in some kind of fire proof container. How am I supposed to dispose of them before they become a fire hazard? Parts stores that take oil won't take them, will they? And I can't put them in the trash, right? What do you guys do with oily rags?
 
Originally Posted By: Pablo
Good rags I wash, paper towels regular (covered) trash outside.

Hmmm...is that "allowed" though? I mean, I could throw my old oil in there too...but I'm not supposed to.

Originally Posted By: Kestas
How about stuffing them in a plastic bag and pack it home for incineration?

Thinking about that, but trying to avoid bringing the mess home with me. Would it be ok to seal them inside a $3 5 gallon bucket until it gets full? (probably 10 years from now) I know they make special metal cans for this but I'm not interested in paying for one...(and spontanious combustion of motor oil seems highly unlikely to me)
 
Originally Posted By: SecondMonkey
Would it be ok to seal them inside a $3 5 gallon bucket until it gets full? (probably 10 years from now)
I don't understand. Is your usage rate that low (fill one bucket every 10 years)? This would make it a non-issue.
 
Well, I'm sure I could stuff a LOT of paper towels in a 5 gallon bucket before it's full. I might use 3-5 for each oil change, which only happens about every 3 months. But then again I don't want to KEEP them anywhere...
 
I generally just stuff them in a steel bucket (that I think originally held roof tar). Come winter, I use the oily paper towels to start fires in the fireplace.
 
I'm not sure how the spontaneous combustion thing works, or how much of a hazard it really is. I've been working in shops with piles of greasy rags for 14 years- never seen it happen once. But I do know of one occasion where a trash can full of paper towels used to wipe up massive amounts of Crisco (some sort of industrial food-preparation thing... don't know the exact scenario) spontaneously caught fire. Didn't see it happen, but was told about it by somebody who doesn't make $hit up.

Personally, I wash the ones that are only a little dirty... and toss the rest. I don't think there's anything illegal about throwing them away (not that I would care, anyway). It's perfectly legal to throw soaked oil-dry in the trash. Soaked rags don't seem that different to me.

The shop that I work in has about a dozen of the metal fire-resistant rag cans sitting randomly around the shop. When I first started there, I was specifically told not to put rags in any of them- we use a bigass plastic trash can that we keep right next to a huge stack of new ATF and engine oil.
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I burn them too. In the future I plan to get some more shop rags and pre-wash and rinse the dirty ones in a pail with TSP detergent before bringing them downstairs for a general wash with my wife's good blouses
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When I worked at a Chrysler-jeep dealership the uniform company picked up all our oily shop rags. We stored the used ones in metal cans and each week when the uniform guy came by with our uniform shirts and pants for the next week, he would take all the used rags and give us clean ones.

Maybe a local uniform company would take your used rags, if all you need to do is get rid of them. I don't think it should matter where or how you store them as long as they get picked up on a regular basis. If you wanted to do the exchange thing and turn in your used rags for clean ones, they would probably charge you for the service.

Now here at home I just keep the rags in my tool box until they are too oily or dirty to use, then they go in the trash. But I don't accumulate very many oily rags here.
 
Landfills are supposed to be designed for that amount of oil contamination.
This is the advice I got from a friend of mine who is a State Geologist working in the land contamination and enforcement office. He told me to just trash stuff like that for this reason...Drained, used oil filters, too.
 
My dad and I take ours to a laundry-mat and load up the big industrial machine that is meant for carpets. We put some Oxy Clean powder in there and let it run twice... They come out de-oiled and clean.
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The attendant never asks...
 
When I worked at a quick lube we had a metal bucket with a lid for oily rags. I have no idea where the rags went after the bucket.

I'll be honest, at home I just throw them in the trash. I really don't know what else to do with them.
 
At home I just throw them away, oil filters too. At work we have a plastic drum for oil filters and another one for rags to go along with the waste oil tank. Whenever the waste oil tank is full we call them to pump it out and they take the used drums and bring us new ones.
 
Originally Posted By: Jimmy9190
When I worked at a Chrysler-jeep dealership the uniform company picked up all our oily shop rags. We stored the used ones in metal cans and each week when the uniform guy came by with our uniform shirts and pants for the next week, he would take all the used rags and give us clean ones.

Maybe a local uniform company would take your used rags, if all you need to do is get rid of them. I don't think it should matter where or how you store them as long as they get picked up on a regular basis. If you wanted to do the exchange thing and turn in your used rags for clean ones, they would probably charge you for the service.

Now here at home I just keep the rags in my tool box until they are too oily or dirty to use, then they go in the trash. But I don't accumulate very many oily rags here.


That's a good point. If we're talking about standard red rags, then just about any local repair shop would be glad to take them off your hands.
 
Unless something flammable like gasoline, WD-40, or brake cleaner is involved, I've always just tossed them in the garbage with everything else. I'd think that it would be harder to light a piece of paper towel soaked in motor oil than a dry piece. I'll have to try it sometime!
 
I'm not really sure how much better or worse washing, throwing in the trash, or burning really would be. The oil still goes somewhere: the water system, a landfill or the air.

For the small usage you describe I would just throw them away and worry about things that have a bigger effect.
 
Originally Posted By: stang5
i bury mine next to dead batteries at the backyard


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Good one.
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Is that next to the garden ..over the septic tank ..or the well?
 
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