used oil and stuff

Listen to your conscience, guys. Please recycle your oil, tires, plastics, etc. It's the right thing to do, don't you think? I've even asked to be recycled when I die (ashes make pretty good fertilizer) so you may flame me now. ;^)

Have you got room at your place for a few thousand tons of spent nuclear reactor waste? Most people can't seem to get behind your relaxed attitude about this natural, from the earth, energy by-product. Whole states, in fact don't seem to want to have anything to do with it. It's been concentrated a bit since it was first mined, and it's been changed some during use, but the same can be said for all petroleum based industrial products, not to mention lead, arsenic, mercury, etc.

Get enough nuclear waste together in one place and it can cut down both your heating and your lighting bills.

All the best, Stan

Now I am not talking about thousands of gallons per acre, but rather a gallon or two poured over an area of less than 10 square feet, in a bad weed patch. I have dug up areas that I treated a couple of years before and could no longer smell or feel any trace of oil.

Used oil also is useful for getting rid of ant hills. I don't know if the ants die or just leave, but by the next year, any ant pile I have poured oil on is abandoned.

Oil spread on a gravel road helps keep the dust down. Again, if it is applied sparingly in the early summer, it is more or less dry by fall and you can hardly see where it was poured.

I don't think a little oil on the surface of the ground hurts a darn thing and I will continue to use my waste oil the same as I always have. And if others don't like it, they should pay more attention to their own business.

A whole lot of most anything deposited in one place is likely to cause a problem. Nothing grows on a manure pile for years, yet if that manure pile is spread out over a field in a thin layer, you can see the next growing season where you spread the manure, because the plants grow so much better there. A little bit of lots of things doesn't hurt and might even help.

Polloution is bad.. no matter if you put a pretty hat and lipstick on it.

have at it... eco terrorist...

Soundguy

Magnesium and calcium are valuable, natural components of the soil and, in most cases, having more is better for the soil chemistry. Too much sodium causes soil particle dispersion -basically all the soil particles become like-charged and start repelling each other. This plays havoc with soil chemistry and physical characteristics - bad for nutrient retention and friability.

As far a chlorides - they usually end up in groundwater and surface water. It is not good, as it makes the water more salty, but in general the impact is not large enought to cause real environmental problems. By the way - using Mg and Ca chlorides actually results in more chlorides in GW and SW because pound-for-pound, these salts are not as effective at melting ice as NaCL. But again, use of Mg and Ca is far better for the soil.

Also, as I mentioned in the thread below, oil (hydrocarbons) os eaten up by soil microbes when there is enough oxygen available - But in most substantial spills, the capacity of the soil microbes to deal with the material is over come, and you end up with "separate phase product in soil and on the GW surface. So natural microbes and environmental conditions this can't be relied on to deal with the problem. Adding oxygen to the system (e.g., peroxides) is often used to get the microbes to clean up the oil or other organic contaminants (gasoline, solvents).

The metals in the waste oil are a different issue. They are there to stay, but not necessarily causing any problems - unless there is a lot of them and result in high concentrations.

When my brother-in-law moved to Seattle from Detroit in the mid 60's he was amazed at the good condition of the bodies of old cars he saw on the road. In fact, he was amazed to see so many cars more than 10 years old on the road, period. It wasn't because almost all the cars on the roads in Detroit then were made locally so people there could afford new ones more often than people in Seattle; it was because the winters in the Pacific NW are so mild that there was no established practice of salting the roads. The other thing he noticed was that the combination of hilly terrain and infrequent snowfall produced inexperienced snow drivers in a situation which was challenging even to experienced snow drivers. The result was, and is, some of the worst winter driving you're likely to encounter anywhere. And cities here virtually shut down when we get the kind of snowfall that people in cities like Buffalo probably think of as almost picnic weather.

All the best, Stan

• Hobby farm

Next time you are out fishing, try putting a potato chip on the water next to the boat. You will be amazed at the size of the visible sheen created by one little chip.

That's because the oil basically spreads out on the water surface in a layer that is one, or a few molecules thick.