Popular Science 1963
- Thread starter Kevin J.
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By the time I came along and grew enough to understand cars Dad would save the used oil in a old gasoline can marked USED OIL and take it to Hi Lo to be poured into their huge tank.
twodog max
Member
Growing up on a dusty country road I remember the county oil truck spraying oil on the roads to try and keep the dust down.
Yep times change.
Yep times change.
I remember when airports with dirt landing strips would spread used oil to keep the dust down.
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Spreading oil to keep the dust down was common practice when I was a kid. So why is it now so evil?
K-22
Member
Las Vegas
In the 1960s we, railroad employees, dumped thousands of gallons of dirty oil on the dusty dirt roads in the train yards in Las Vegas.
In the 1960s we, railroad employees, dumped thousands of gallons of dirty oil on the dusty dirt roads in the train yards in Las Vegas.
My parents had a cottage on Lake St Clair in Michigan when I was growing up. It was on a small peninsula with a gravel road. A big truck would come down and spread used motor oil to keep the dust down. We were glad to see it! The cottage also had asbestous siding. 
I also played with a Bayer Aspirin bottle filled with mercury when I was a young and have eaten a lot fish caught in the Great Lakes.
I'm not dead yet and I still smoke and have a few drinks in the evening!
Life is short, do what you gotta do...
I also played with a Bayer Aspirin bottle filled with mercury when I was a young and have eaten a lot fish caught in the Great Lakes.
I'm not dead yet and I still smoke and have a few drinks in the evening!
Life is short, do what you gotta do...
The environmentalists would go nuts if they caught someone
doing that today.
doing that today.
Why? Where do they think oil comes from?
Petroleum products migrate to the water table many times and contaminate drinking water. Spent a good deal of my working life identifying and dealing with underground contamination. I am and am not a fan of the EPA. When it originated, a major river back east had caught fire. After doing a lot of good they ran out of good to do and then started looking for things to do to keep their jobs. I know one contractor in Arizona that had a 1,000' deep hole drilled and used that to pour his companies used petroleum products into. It penetrated 3 water tables. Locally, the asphalt manufacturing company picks up used oil from mechanic shops and uses it in the asphalt operations. There is a solution for about every problem however often it is too costly in time and money to accomplish.
Look up Times Beach and Verona MO. Waste oil was mixed with Dioxin and spread to control dust. Most of it is still out there.
Mosy of my used oil goes to my buddy who has a waste oil heater for his shop. I keep a plastic bucket full of wood shavings and dump some used oil on them for fire starter. Chopping kindling is a pain and more than one guy has got hurt doing it.
Bring back the good old days.
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Anyone else get told to put your used oil filters on fence posts to let them drain? Similarly, saved used oil and dip fence posts or deck posts for use below grade?
Remember....
"Dilution is the solution to pollution"?
"Dilution is the solution to pollution"?
DWalt
Member
I was also raised in a small rural community having mainly dirt streets. The Township would occasionally send out a tank truck full of used crankcase oil to spray on the streets. It worked fairly well to keep down the dust. Eventually they paved the streets with asphalt, but that didn't occur until late in the 1950s. When I was working in the West Texas oil fields in the 1970s, many of the lease roads were sprayed with crude oil (tank bottoms). Over the years a fairly durable paved surface had built up, very similar to asphalt. Then there was the famous Times Beach incident. A Town, a Flood, and Superfund: Looking Back at the Times Beach Disaster Nearly 40 Years Later | US EPA
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Bring back the good old days.
That's funny because back around 2015 or so, I bought an antique 1930's Physician's leather house call bag on Ebay....In it was stethoscope, bandages, all sorts of metal syringes, many other things and finally a clear bottle full of early cough medication....
Ingredients of the cough medication were 1) Alcohol and 2) Morphine sulfate liquid.
I gave it to my doctor, and he has the entire bag on display in his office behind glass.
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Alpo
Member
When I was a kid we poured the used motor oil in the fence row. Killed the weeds that grew up along the fence. In 1982 - I know that because that's when I lived in that house - I would take the used motor oil and pour it on the fire ant hills.
You’re supposed to put gravel in the hole?
DWalt
Member
Most early medications were simple mixtures of alcohol and narcotics. They cured nothing but they made the pain and sickness more tolerable.
