It would also be nice to buy the exact amount of oil I want. Instead of buying a five quart jug or four quarts of oil, I could get the 3.8 quarts my car holds, or save myself a trip and buy 7.6 quarts at a time.
That is one of the most ridiculous comments I have ever heard. First of all, recycling plactic does not mean you don’t have to make new plastic items–you make them out of recycled materials. Second, even if you mean re-use, not recycle, and assume EVERY plastic bottle is reused for the same purpose, eliminating say 80% of the need for new (a specious concept), you won’t be eliminating very many jobs. Injection molding is not a labor intensive process, it is largely automated.
I think a better idea is more evolution of furnaces that operate on waste motor oil. Such furnaces already exist. Towns could have a bulk tank and use the oil for heating of public buildings. Perhaps there are even hot water systems that can use used motor oil.
This approach would not only reduce plastic bottles (assuming they allow patrons to pour directly into a bulk tank) but also reduce waste oil and maybe even reduce illegal dumping.
I’d strongly recommend proposing this at your next town meeting, if you’re lucky enough to live where town meetings are still a way of government.
The best way to recycle is to continue using the product, whether that means passing it on or using it for yet another application.
I’m not sure how that saves on the bottles - that’s mostly a way of getting rid of the waste oil.
So I’ll tell you what finally prompted me to air this thought - I have over a dozen used oil containers in my garage. What happens is that since I have so many, and have 3 vehicles + lawn & garden stuff, I accumulate waste oil for insanely long periods of time. I have plenty of containers to dump it in! I finally take them when I get tired of tripping over them and it becomes a huge production as you might imagine. So I most certainly do keep reusing the containers.
But then I still have all of the old ones AND I just get another one every time I change the oil.
I just did this over the weekend one more time and I am about to just crush them and trash them. But it does bother me to send it all out in the trash. I wouldn’t have to if I didn’t have to get a new jug every time I get new oil.
My thinking is that if the town’s bulk tank enabled folks to dump the oil in some would bring the bottles back home with them to reuse.
But hey, even if they don’t it’d still at least be a way use reducing fuel use by the town facilities. It uses far less resources to burn the used oil than to have it trucked away for recycling and have some other fuel trucked into the town facilities for heat. The best forms of recycling involve no processing.
The BRESCO incinerator in downtown Baltimore burns plastic of all sorts. I’m sure they would have no problem burning spent plastic oil containers. If they can do it, other incinerators can, too.
[I don’t know how my reply to mountainbike ended up down here, but I am completely with both mountainbike and Whitey on that]
I’m completely with you on that.
As for the bottles - I’m also completely with you that reusing is absolutely the best thing. But maybe since so much can accumulate I should just become a trash artist. I can make lawn sculpture from use oil bottles. Maybe make some cash on the side. 
Why would you want to incinerate something that can be recycled?
You guys are lucky,I live downwind from a neighbor I love-who has a nasty burning pit,he burns on still ,muggy nights,so guess who suffers(folks if you are gonna burn the stuff,at least construct a decent incinerator)-Kevin
Just Like The Weather, Everybody Complains About It , But Nobody Does Anything About It . . . Or Do They ? . . .
. . . Here’s a couple of interesting links:
http://www.recycledproducts.com/?cid=27
http://www.scdhec.gov/environment/lwm/recycle/oil_recycling.htm
CSA
Here’s another one:
http://deltafarmpress.com/news/oil-containers-0610/
I sent my thoughts to Advance Auto parts - does that count as “doing something?” Like controlling the weather, this isn’t something that I can do something about - except by bringing it up - including to a company that could do something about it.
Whether it would make any difference? Well, I don’t have a marketing research firm to draw on.
You are right about the plastic oil containers. Shops cut back on buying bulk oil due to the many different types. Plastic oil containers go to the landfill in record numbers. Think boats, cars, motorcycles,lawnmowers,airplanes,etc… Does China buy used oil containers?
Some people just don’t care to recycle. We recycle so much that there is barely one can of trash each week, but that’s just us. And the burned trash in B-more creates steam for power. Most of downtown Charm City gets all its power from this incinerator.
Even though the containers displace regular fossil fuel when burned,its too easy and cost effective-so we cant count this as recycling-I used to be an avid recycler till I figured out what a joke most recycling is.I would go out of my to buy recycled products,couldnt hardly find them.now they are harder to find it seems to me like.
Once upon a time a firm was charging gullible people for a diaper recycling service till they were caught dumping the diapers in a landfill and another thing that raised my ire was a company that recycled antifreeze-I contacted them about the price of a barrel of recycled antifreeze,maybe I didnt make myself clear-I asked them about the price of a barrel(I assumed he would know I wanted antifreeze) his reply was"A barrel of what?" end of discussion.Anyway I used to refill the Rotella jugs with bulk oil which worked fairly well as long as I labeled the jugs with a sharpie-Kevin
“Does China buy used oil containers?” No, But They’ll Soon Own All Of Them Anyhow When The U.S. Defaults On All The Loans It Can’t Repay.
CSA
“Besides, his wife was angry because he still left carbon foot prints in the living room.”
Why would the Chinese cut their noses off? If they stop buying out paper, we stop buying their goods. Then they have problems they didn’t count on, too. They’re not stupid enough to play that game. Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, might be that foolish.
Haven’t had a prob getting rid of spent plastic oil jugs so far. Our recycler takes 'em. On your idea, how would the pureness of the oil be guaranteed in a system such as you propose?
If your recycler takes old oil jugs it is much more of an exception than a rule. Of course, my “recycler” will “take” them. They just won’t recycle them. So - maybe yours too are going to the landfill via your recycler.
How does one “guarantee” the pureness of oil currently? I’m not sure what’s different. A little plastic ring on the cap or a foil seal guarantees pureness for you?
Ok - well then I suppose every “barrel” can have its security seal. You can check it if you want to at the store - is that the question?
There are logistics that would obviously need to be worked out. I don’t think of that one as a very hard one.