Used motor oil

Used motor oil contains lots of toxic materials. Shaq knows that recycling used motor oil is an economically and environmentally smart way to handle this kind of hazardous waste. Whenever a car needs an oil change, he collects the oil in this drum. When it's full, the truck from the oil recycling program picks it up to be "cleaned" and reused.

Shaq also accepts used motor oil from people who change their own oil. By providing this service, he knows that the used oil will be disposed of properly and won't be poured down the drain, on the ground, into Recycle City's storm sewers, or put into the regular trash.

If someone in your family changes the car's oil at home, make sure the used oil is taken to a local gas station, oil-change shop, or hazardous waste drop-off center. Never pour used motor oil down the sewer or into a drain, where it can flow into a body of water and contaminate it along with the fish, plants, and animals living there.

Return

At the pump

What does proper car operation and maintenance have to do with the environment? Plenty. What you drive, how you drive, how you care for your vehicle, and how you dispose of used fluids and parts affects the quality of the air and water, the safety and availability of landfills, and even the ozone layer above the Earth that protects everyone from ultraviolet radiation. Here are some things you can do:

• Use the right octane level—Using higher octane does not necessarily increase the engine's performance, so don't buy higher octane gasoline than the car engine needs. (Making fuels with higher octane uses more crude oil than lower octane gas. Also, making higher octane fuel often involves use of toxic substances that can be released into the environment.)
• Don't overfill or spill—Stop filling the tank when the pump automatically shuts off. Going past the pump's cutoff increases the chance of spilling gas and releasing harmful gas vapors.
• Put the gas cap on tightly—The gas cap is part of the car's evaporative emission control system and prevents the escape of gas vapors from the fuel tank. Putting the cap on tight reduces air pollution and protects the fuel tank and engine by keeping water out of the fuel.
• Use cleaner fuels—If available in your area, use alternative fuels that can reduce motor vehicle pollution. These fuels burn more completely than gasoline or are less likely to evaporate directly into the air.

Return

Used oil filters

Oil filters are made from high-quality steel and they can be recycled. Because an average used oil filter retains as much as 6 to 8 ounces of engine oil after it is removed, Shaq makes sure all the leftover oil is drained from a filter before he puts it into the bin to be taken to the Recycle City Materials Recovery Facility.

Like the rest of the country, about 45 percent of Recycle City car owners change their own oil. When they do, they drain the oil from the used filter into a plastic milk jug and then put the filter into a plastic bag for collection. (Although many cities don't yet collect used oil filters the way Recycle City does, you can still help the environment by taking the used filter and oil to the proper collection facility.)

At the Materials Recovery Facility, one of the crew cuts open the bags of used oil filters and loads them onto 90-gallon carts for collection by a company that properly processes the filters. At the processing center, the last drops of oil are drained and captured for recycling. Then, the steel is pressed into cubes. (About 15 to 20 used filters make a single cube.) The cubes are sold to steel mills to be made into something else.

Return

Maintenance

Here are some maintenance tips that can help cars run better and help the environment.

• Use the recommended oil viscosity (thickness)—Motor oil varies by thickness. Using the lowest recommended viscosity for the lowest expected outdoor temperatures gives you the best gas mileage, easy starts, and cold-engine protection.
• Use energy-conserving oils—Oil containers marked with "EC" numbers on the labels can improve gas mileage by one to two percent.
• Don't use too much oil—Too much oil in the engine can increase friction and create a mess in the engine compartment. If the oil level is a half-quart low, put in only a half-quart, or wait until it needs a full quart and put in a full quart.
• Get regular maintenance—Follow the recommended maintenance guidelines for your car to keep it in top running condition and minimize damage to the environment. Things that need regular maintenance include air filters, oil, oil filters, vacuum and coolant hoses, spark plugs, oxygen sensors, and emission systems.
• Recycle used oil—The oil from just one oil change is enough to contaminate one million gallons of fresh water. Americans who change their own oil throw away 120 million gallons of reusable oil every year. Much of it contains unsafe substances such as lead and benzene. Oil dumped on the ground can leach into drinking water sources underground. If you or someone in your house changes the oil, don't dump it—take it to a service station or a collection center!

Return

Used CFCs

What are CFCs and why does Shaq's Garage collect them? For many years, car air conditioners and home refrigerators have used chemical compounds called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs for short, to help produce cool air. (Today, new cars and refrigerators don't use them.)

CFCs aren't dangerous by themselves, but they become a big problem if they escape into the air. Once they escape, they float up into the ozone layer—about 10 to 30 miles above the Earth. (Stratospheric ozone wraps all the way around the Earth and blocks the sun's most dangerous ultraviolet [UV] rays, keeping them from harming us.)

Once CFCs are up in the stratosphere where it's freezing cold, they break down into smaller pieces, and that's when the trouble starts...One of these smaller bits, chlorine, eats the oxygen atoms that make up some of the ozone. As the chlorine eats the oxygen atoms, the ozone layer gets thinner and can't keep as many UV rays from reaching the Earth. Too much UV light reaching the Earth can cause severe sunburn, eye damage, skin cancer, kill crops and other plants, and even destroy sea life.

Fortunately, CFCs can be recycled. In the Recycle City garage, Shaq uses special equipment to capture the cooling liquids that contain CFCs from the car's air conditioner. That way, the CFCs don't escape into the air and can be used again in older cars.

(Since new car air conditioners use different chemicals that don't hurt the ozone layer, CFCs will gradually become less of a problem.)

Return

Used antifreeze

Shaq's Garage has special equipment for recycling antifreeze. Shaq uses special equipment because, even though antifreeze is biodegradable, it is poisonous and has some environmentally harmful ingredients, like lead. (Antifreeze is also known as coolant, because it not only keeps car engines from freezing, it also keeps them from getting too hot.)

Shaq also collects antifreeze from many Recycle City residents who flush out their car cooling systems themselves. They carefully catch old antifreeze in a clean container and seal it before taking it to the garage. Then, Shaq uses special equipment to remove contaminants and replace the necessary additives so the antifreeze can be used again in another car.

If someone in your family changes the car antifreeze, make sure it is taken to a repair shop or garage that recycles it. Never dump old antifreeze in a storm drain or sewer!

Return

Vapor recovery

Shaq's Garage has special nozzles on its gas pumps to trap gas fumes that escape when people fill their gas tanks. Why does Shaq bother? Because pollution from gas fumes is even more concentrated than exhaust that comes out of a car's tailpipe. (So it's more harmful to people and the environment.)

Gas fumes contain things like volatile organic compounds, called VOCs, and other pollutants and dangerous chemicals, like benzene, that can cause cancer. The nozzles, called vapor recovery systems, help prevent escaping gas fumes from getting into the air. That's important because when gas fumes mix with sunlight, smog forms. Smog, or ground-level ozone pollution, makes it harder for people to breathe. It can irritate the eyes, throat and lungs, and can make problems like asthma worse.

Cars and other motor vehicles are so much a part of our society that almost everyone everywhere breathes their emissions. In cities, at least half of the air pollutants that become smog are caused by gas-powered vehicles or equipment. By putting a vapor recovery system at the gas pump, Shaq helps reduce toxic emissions that contribute to unhealthy air and other serious problems in the environment.

Did you know that ground-level ozone—the main ingredient in smog—has the same chemical makeup as stratospheric ozone? The difference is that the ozone layer up in the stratosphere protects life on earth, but ozone in the air we breathe is bad for our health.

Return

Underground storage tanks

The gasoline that Shaq sells to his customers is stored in tanks under the ground. When his station was built, Shaq used double-lined tanks to protect the environment if the tanks ever leaked. Double lining means that there are two layers of metal between the gasoline and the soil, so there is less chance that a leak would contaminate the soil and groundwater beneath the earth's surface.

What's a USTLDS anyway? The sign marks the location of Shaq's Underground Storage Tank Leak Detection System. The system monitors the tanks and the soil around them so that Shaq knows right away if there's a problem. That way, he can call the experts to fix the leak before it becomes a big problem—one that could be very expensive to clean up the soil and groundwater.

 Return

Old Tires

Worn-out tires don't need to be thrown away. Shaq does two things to keep old tires going.

• First, he sends good tires that are still safe for use on the road to a tire company to be reconditioned. These retreads can be put back on the car and driven safely for many more miles.
• Second, when old tires can't be put back into shape, Shaq collects them and passes them on to companies that reprocess them. Old tires can be shredded or melted down and used to help make other materials, such as asphalt to pave roads or playground surfaces to make them safer.

When the tires on your car wear out, don't just throw them away. If your local gas station doesn't do what Shaq's Garage does, call your local solid waste management department.

Whatever you do, don't toss them into the nearest ditch or garbage can. Each year, over 242 million tires are scrapped in the U.S.—equal to about one tire per person!

Only about 30 percent of all tires today are reused, recycled, or recovered in environmentally and economically useful ways. The rest, about 2 to 3 billion tires so far, have been going into shrinking landfill spaces, added to rapidly growing stockpiles of tires, or dumped into creeks or empty lots.

Return

Electric Cars

This is one of the new electric cars purchased by a couple of Recycle City residents. These forward-looking folks know that in the future more car owners will be driving up to "charging stations" to refuel their vehicles with electricity.

These first electric cars can't go as fast or as far as gasoline-powered cars, but they are good for people who want them for driving short distances. Scientists and engineers are working on better batteries that will let electric cars perform just as well as gas-powered ones.

Electric cars will mean less pollution because nothing comes out of the tailpipe, so people will breathe cleaner air. (Power plants that make the electricity to charge the batteries create some pollution, but much less than gas-powered cars.)

Return

First Visit? | Go to Recycle City! | What's New | About Recycle City's Founders | EPA Region 9 Home

EPA Home | Privacy and Security Notice | Contact Us