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` Managing Used Oil: Advice for Small Businesses I Common Wastes&Materials I US EPA Page 5 of 6 might be stricter than EPA's. Contact your state or local environmental agency to determine your best course of action. Mixing Used Oil and Hazardous Waste In addition to EPA's used oil management standards, your business may be required to comply with federal and state hazardous waste regulations if your used oil becomes contaminated from mixing it with hazardous waste. If used oil is mixed with hazardous waste, It probably will have to be managed as a hazardous waste. Hazardous waste disposal is a lengthy, costly, and strict regulatory process. The only way to be sure your used oil does not become contaminated with hazardous waste is to store it separately from all solvents and chemicals and not to mix it with anything. How Should My Business Manage Used Oil Filters? The Filter Manufacturers' Council maintains a regulatory hotline and database to encourage the proper management of used oil filters. By calling the hotline at 800 99-FILTER, you can access the proper management requirements for your particular states. The database contains: • Overviews of federal and state regulations relevant to the management of oil filters. • Addresses and phone numbers of the regulatory agencies governing the management of used filters in each state. • A listing of companies, by state, that transport, process, and recycle used filters. How Can My Business Avoid Costly Cleanups? Meeting the following conditions relieves service station dealers from responsibility for costly cleanups and liabilities associated with off-site handling of used oil. To meet these conditions, service stations must: 1. Comply with the management standards described above; 2. Do not mix used oil with any hazardous substance; and 3. Accept used oil from Do-it-yourselfers (DIYs) and send it for recycling. Recommended Cleanup Practices EPA recommends, but does not require, the following cleanup practices for used oil handlers: (1) maximize the recovery of used oil; (2) minimize the generation of used oil sorbent waste by choosing reusable sorbent materials; (3) use the spent sorbent materials to produce recycled sorbent materials; and (4) buy sorbent materials with recycled content. Extraction devices (e.g., centrifuges, wringers, and compactors) can be used to recover used oil from reusable sorbent materials. Sorbent pads can be reused between two and eight times depending on the viscosity of the used oil. These technologies, while not required, can be used to reduce the number of sorbent pads ultimately sent for remanufacture, energy recovery, or disposal. The potential to reduce waste and save money (i.e., lower disposal costs for spent pads and lower per use cost of sorbent pads) by reusing and recycling sorbent pads can be substantial. Managing Cleanup Materials If you have used oil on rags or other sorbent materials from cleaning up a leak or spill, you should remove as much of the free-flowing oil as possible and manage the oil as you would have before it spilled. Once the free-flowing used oil has been removed from these materials, they are not considered used oil and may be managed as solid waste as long as they do not http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/usedoil/usedoil.htm 6/27/2012