Environmental use-to's.....

[e-tek]

Junk and Goodfellows exchange (in another thread) about old practices that weren't exactly "environmentally friendly caught my eye. Thought it'd be interesting to hear how bad we used to treat ol' mother nature....

Your story about cleaning the service station floor reminded me of a Gulf station that the owner would pour gasoline on the floor, mop it around, and then hose the floor down and it would all go down the floor drain. I never knew where it drained to, but all I could think of today is that it must be a hazardous waste site waiting to be cleaned. That was about 50 years ago, when no one ever thought about the envoirment...

That sure is right Junk. In the early 1970's I worked in a place where they cleaned the floors and equipment with Varsol twice a month. The Varsol was then cleaned off with a hot water pressure washer and it all went down the drain. No one gave a second thought to the environmental impact.

At my Dad's BodyShop, it was my job to come in on Saturday mornings to take the 45gal drum of used paints and thinners out to the back to pour into the tall grass. It didn't soak in much because the Fraser River was only 15 feet away - YIKES!

As well, they had a cross-draft booth that just blew the overspray right outside!

 

[ket-tek]

On the farm I grew up on, my grandmothers house was on the back of the property and that old place had plumbing pipes stubbed out over an embankment a couple hundred feet away coming from the kitchen and baths. And the same thing coming from the drains in the dairy barn. No septic system then.

There was also the family personal huge junk pile hole dug out in the woods on the furthest point of the property, had to take the 4wd truck or the tractor to get to it. like 100years and 3 generations of families dumping trash or waste out there. oil, appliances, car parts, rotten housetrash, dead animals.. Convient but probably not the best idea. Altough not much different that where my trash probably goes now. It just cost $40/mo now.

 

[bgott]

I remember back in the early '70s that one magazine, in their how to/DIY section, had an article on digging a hole in your back yard and lining it with rocks or gravel for a motor oil dump pit. It's been awhile but that was the general gist of it.

 

[nate379]

My grandfather would do that with all of his tractors, trucks, etc up till he passed on.

"It came from the ground so it's just going back in."

 

[Steve from Socal]

Used Stoddard solvent and TCE to clean stuff and hose it down the drain. The water wells in the San Fernando Valley are all contaminated with PCE, TCE and solvents used by industries in the past. I used to spray car and airplane engines down to clean them regularly. I also remember the hole in the ground for oil and as a kid did that as well. Lacquer and paint thinner in the dirt too.

In the Santa Susana Pass the Rocket dyno and breeder reactor at Rocketdyne both have major issues that Boeing had to buy off before selling Rocketdyne to Pratt& Whitney. This area, Santa Monica/Culver City and the South Bay all have legacy contaminates from the aerospace industry.

Steve

 

[mrb]

Used Stoddard solvent and TCE to clean stuff and hose it down the drain. The water wells in the San Fernando Valley are all contaminated with PCE, TCE and solvents used by industries in the past. I used to spray car and airplane engines down to clean them regularly. I also remember the hole in the ground for oil and as a kid did that as well. Lacquer and paint thinner in the dirt too.

In the Santa Susana Pass the Rocket dyno and breeder reactor at Rocketdyne both have major issues that Boeing had to buy off before selling Rocketdyne to Pratt& Whitney. This area, Santa Monica/Culver City and the South Bay all have legacy contaminates from the aerospace industry.

Steve

the aerospace industry left us with some great surplus stores though

actually its gone downhill quite a bit. I miss the early 90s

 

[Brad54]

When I was in college ('91 or '92), I wrote a term paper, and it ended up being my first published thing, as the teacher's assistant told me to submit it to the student newspaper. I'm a professional writer now because of that.
But the story was titled "What's a gallon gonna do?" That was the quote I got from the city of Sylvania, Ohio's waste management guy, when I asked how to dispose of my used motor oil. He told me to hide it in the trash, or dump it in the woods, because "What's a gallon gonna do?" HA!

Amazingly, at that time the state of Ohio's official policy was to ask local service stations if you could give it to them to be recycled, and if not, you were on your own. They didn't say their policy was to hide it in your garbage can, but they didn't have a policy period.

What was even more amazing is that they DID have an official state policy, as told to me by the state's waste-management honcho in Columbus (the state capital) regarding the proper disposal of used anti-freeze. "Drive into the country and dump it on the ground along a fence or tree line." He actually looked it up in a book! Official state policy up through the early '90s! I would hope it's changed by now.

I was a pretty decent tree-hugger then, and was largely responsible for shaming my university into starting their recycling program through my newspaper column. And I still support common sense tree hugging. But this Global Warming/climate change ruse, and using 3 squares of toilet paper, and reusable cloth grocery bags made by Indonesian sweat shop labor instead of recyclable biodegradable brown paper bags is idiotic.

-Brad

 

[Kevin54]

I used to have to periodically clean out degreasing tanks at a factory. Trichlorethane dumped out on the ground out back. When I was little I remember seeing the oil truck with booms spreading oil on gravel roads every summer. Many Dry Cleaners dumped used chemicals out back. Now that industry has went to Mexico and China, we can really pollute Mother Nature, just in another area.

 

[e-tek]

I was just recalling a paper I wrote too. ABout the untreated waste going into the ocean out on the West Coast. It was shown there was an explosion of marine life at the end of the pipe - living off the biomass generated!

MMM - seafood!

 

[mrb]

but this global warming/climate change ruse, and using 3 squares of toilet paper, and reusable cloth grocery bags made by indonesian sweat shop labor instead of recyclable biodegradable brown paper bags is idiotic.

-brad

thank you!

 

[Rolling_Thunder]

Oil changes in the 70's we didnt use a container we would just straddle the car over the ditch in front of the house and let her drain!

We had a neighbor who's septic had problems so he placed a plastic pipe from his washer to the ditch to empty it out! We used to clog it up or stick M80's in it all the time, used to Piss the old fart off!

Porta potties on the local fishing boats drained straight into the bay!

The house across the street from us I remember they were putting fill dirt in behind their bulkhead. We used to play on the mounds and there was alot of Medical Trash mixed in with the dirt, test tubes, syringes... Geez lucky AIDs and Herpe's and ... werent around back then! Damn now I wanna go get checked out!!

 

[billspit]

Thanks a lot guys. I do environmental site assessments for a living. Now I will be worried over every site I do. Of course we already were suspicious of any gas stations, dry cleaners and body shops.

Realtors used to love to tell us that a site we were doing was "always a farm. They grew cotton." Totally oblivious to the dumping practices on farms someone mentioned and that cotton used to get up to 30 applications of insecticide a year. Stuff made with arsenic, DDT, aldrin endrin, toxaphene and on and on.

 

[powellscooter]

I remember back in the early '70s that one magazine, in their how to/DIY section, had an article on digging a hole in your back yard and lining it with rocks or gravel for a motor oil dump pit. It's been awhile but that was the general gist of it.

I remember that article as well. It has stuck with me for a long time, thinking about all the people who must have done that

 

[walrus]

I work on gasoline equipment, back in the day if a tank sprung a leak in the winter and water was coming into the tank, we'd get a standing work order to pump the water every time it got to 2 inches, pump it right on the ground. Do it all winter until the ground thawed.
Change a nozzle, spray the air and gas on the ground to bleed the air out.

Now if you fart sideways the DEP will throw the book at ya

 

[datsunfan]

Soon we'll have to add WASHING THE CAR to the list of environmental no-no's....


http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-09-28-car-wash_N.htm

 

[gsport]

i remember in the early 70's when i was in the army in colorado... i was a driver in a support platoon. we used to pull our trucks up on the ramps and drain the oil right onto the ground. about 5 gallons at a time...

 

[krooser]

We would regularly have spills when the tanker truck was unlaoding gasoline at our service station... we would have to wash it down into the storm sewers if it was a larger spill than a couple bags of oil dry could handle.

 

[nate379]

Curious, how do you all get rid of your trash?

Most people around here use a burn barrel.

Some places think that it's bad... dunno... what's worse... polluting the air or the land?

 

[tigerbalm2424]

There was also the family personal huge junk pile hole dug out in the woods on the furthest point of the property, had to take the 4wd truck or the tractor to get to it. like 100years and 3 generations of families dumping trash or waste out there. oil, appliances, car parts, rotten housetrash, dead animals.. Convient but probably not the best idea. Altough not much different that where my trash probably goes now. It just cost $40/mo now.

Same story here expect it was found and I joined in cleaning it up.

 

[bgott]

Diesel fuel used to be the standard weed killer used on ranches for keeping the fenceline clear. My grandfather had a 200 gallon fuel tank on a stand that was used exclusively for weed killing, he didn't have any diesel fueled equipment.

 

[Matti]

I worked for a little crude oil/diesel fuel distribution company in the early '80s. Our solution for spilled diesel fuel/crude oil when loading railcars was a load of gravel. We washed oily floors with toluene. Bleeding off large quantities of butane or propane into the atmostphere was ok. Dusty roads were sprayed with crude oil. How things have changed!