I live in small northern town. Years ago, we had several mechanics that used to collect all the old engine oil around town, collect it all in tanks and then use it as fuel to power specialized furnaces to heat their garages. Those furnaces were environmentally unfriendly because it burned dirty oil, in a dirty furnace in an inefficient way so it was deemed environmentally unfriendly and phased out.

Then the town developed a program of allowing residents to take any used oil they had at home from their own oil change jobs they did to be collected at the local dump. There was a big tank there and we could just dump our oil there and then it would be taken to be processed somewhere else.

I do all my own oil changes on my vehicles and motorcycles, so in a year, I end up with several liters of oil in my garage that I have to get ride of. I know several other guys around town who do the same and they end up with several liters of oil in their garages. So for a while, we all took our oil to the dump for safe handling.

The town then cut that program to save money and then directed everyone to a few local garages where used oil could be collected. A few years go by and now those garages don't want to accept any used oil because it costs them money after a while when their collections get too much because they are collecting oil themselves as a business when they do oil changes. They just don't want the hassle of collecting oil from a bunch of guys in town who sometimes end up with several gallons of the stuff because we don't have anywhere to take our used oil.

So now, myself and several guys in town have resorted to secretly sending our used oil in the regular trash. Every week, we just fill a one liter bottle of used motor oil and throw it out with the trash. Little by little over a year, we get rid of all our oil, in the regular garbage ... into the dump, unprocessed and it all seeps into the ground water.

All because our local municipality, regional government and environmental protection agencies don't want to make it easy for us regular people to have a safe way to dispose of our used motor oil.

As dirty as it was with the garages that burned used motor oil years ago ... the annual pollution they generated paled in comparison to the mining smelters in our area or the pulp and paper mills that are also in our region, who all pump thousands of tons of pollution into the air every year. Instead our only easy option is to throw it all into the trash.

Put it back right where ya got it.

cries in soil remediation

this is actually higher quality than current day popular science articles lol