If oil-absorbents like absorbent mats, absorbent socks, shop towels, and rags are a crucial part of your daily business operations, you have several disposal options. Closed Loop Recycling explains disposal options and how to choose the best solution for your business.
Explaining Your Options for the Disposal of Used Oil-Absorbents
Tossing Absorbents in the Trash
Tossing your used absorbents into the trash seems like an easy way to dispose of them—but in reality, it leads to costly problems.
Many industries that require liquids like oil to operate are required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prove their used towels, rags, and absorbent mats don’t contain free liquids before they go to a landfill. The “no free liquid” condition is required because absorbents harm landfills by releasing liquids when absorbents are compressed during routine landfill operations.
To prove your absorbents meet the “no free liquid” requirement, you must pass the Paint Filter Liquids Test. The test, technically known as EPA Test Method 9095B, is designed to identify free liquids in a given sample of absorbent material. A predetermined amount of the test material is placed in a paint filter. If any liquid passes through and drops from the filter within the five-minute test period, the material contains free liquids. The liquids test is not required for every solvent-contaminated absorbent or at any particular time. Still, it’s recommended to ensure that if the test were performed, your absorbents would pass.
If there are free liquids present in your oil-absorbents, it can affect your business’s hazardous waste generator status. It also means you can’t take your absorbents to a landfill, or you will be given a violation citation or costly fine. If used properly, the Paint Filter Liquids Test is a valuable tool to maintain your compliance with EPA regulations.
Taking Absorbents to a Landfill
If your absorbents meet the “no free liquid” requirement, you have the option to dispose of them at your local landfill, but this solution has several environmental consequences:
- Pollution: When specific waste, such as absorbent mats, ends up in a landfill, the harmful chemicals seep into the soil, resulting in cancerous cells forming in the dirt.
- Overflowing Landfills: As more of the population continues to neglect recycling, landfills continuously pile up, depositing harmful chemicals into the atmosphere.
- Natural Habitat Destruction: As landfills pile up, the earth can’t keep up with the amount of hazardous waste, destroying natural habitats.
Taking your absorbents to a landfill also affects your business’s green goals, like the Zero Landfill Initiative. Achieving zero landfill status means that when you reuse, recycle, or compost all of your waste instead of sending it to landfills or incinerators, you get certified as a zero landfill business.