Actually, lhtown, the Dominican refinery will buy back used oil and re-refine it, or at least they used to. That's why I was asking Caco to comment. His company has a fleet of vehicles that they collect the used oil from when they make oil changes, and they sell it to the refinery. The company actually
makes money on this -- not huge amounts, but it is a
plus on the company bottom line. So it can be done! In fact, folks, it
is done in neighboring PR....
Unless things have changed dramatically since 1999 when I last owned a vehicle in SD, used oil is not collected by most
talleres and certainly not by individuals, many of whom toss it into the storm drains or trash. In the drains they ultimately pollute the waterways. In the household trash they add to the hazards of the city dump. Yes, folks, used oil has many, many hazardous contaminants.
I know that the Environment Ministry considers that the new environment norm on marinas covers the problem of collecting and properly managing boat and ship lubricants, although I have to wonder how well this is enforced, if at all, and what is done with the collected lubricants (if anything other than dumping).
I find it interesting that the boat/ship angle has been addressed in Dominican regulation, but the lubricants used by terrestrial vehicles have not. "used oil' is included in the definition of "special wastes" that might be possibly subject to special rules, but none specifically included in the norm on wastes. :ermm:
The DR is not alone in this. The poor collection/treatment/ recycling/disposal of used lubricants is a common problem in Latin America & the Caribbean. As I said in the overview chapter of the 2002 edition of my book:
Informal collection systems for used oil and lubricants have existed for some time in many LAC nations. Although most national laws would classify used oil as a hazardous waste and therefore subject to special handling, treatment and disposal rules, in reality most collectors are not registered or tracked and most take no special precautions in handling the used oil they collect. A 1993 Brazilian regulation is the only known existing specific legislation on the topic, although Argentine, Chilean, Colombian, Mexican and Peruvian officials are all known to be working on instruments. Generally speaking, officials fear that existing systems are not functioning well, that much used oil goes uncollected, and the portion that does is often not re-refined and is sold, contaminants and all, for use as cheap fuel -- many times without warning to the consumer about the oil?s degraded quality and the risk from contaminants present.
For those interested in further reading what other countries in Latin America have done, check out
http://www.cepis.org.pe/bvsare/e/lubricantes-vfinal.pdf
(in Spanish)
There was a project proposal last year by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Caribbean Regional Office of the Basel Convention (on Hazardous Wastes) (at CARIRI in Trinidad), and the St. Lucia-based Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI) [
www.cehi.org.lc] to assess the used oil problem & develop jointly solutions to it, but I don't know if the proposal was accepted and if the DR chose to participate (the project required some contributions from participating governments in order to make it possible -- about US$12,000 in the case of the DR).
Best regards,
Keith