Green turns gray

Not all oil is a welcome gift to recycler

Dave Leith has been receiving drop-offs of old motor oil at his business since he began to use an oil heater eight months ago. The donations now have him worried because they often are unusable.

People often drop off five gallon oil tins at Leith Service but will leave the oil when Leith isn’t around to verify what’s inside.

“It doesn’t have to be clean or anything special,” he said. “There are just some things it can’t be. Then when they do that, they set it there and it just boils over.”

He can’t burn oil in the heater if there might be water or antifreeze mixed in because it’s bad for the heater. If cans are dropped cans are dropped off when Leith isn’t there then he has to take them to the county.

“They could do it when I was here,” he said. “We could see what was in it, then I could get rid of it and probably give them their bucket back. It’d be a much better deal.”