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A big difference between new and used lubricants is that all of the waste must be further classified as hazardous forming the largest class of non-aqueous hazardous waste materials. This results in increased tiers of regulation and management responsibilities.
Lube Magazine readers will know that there are many different lubricant types including some that strictly are not lubricants, electrical insulation fluids for example. Added to that, one oil type might be used in a number of applications, meaning the permutation of these factors easily ranges into thousands.
It is a European requirement to support a waste hierarchy scheme whereby waste lubricants are ‘regenerated’, a term meaning treated to become a suitable base oil component for reuse as a lubricant as opposed to making a fuel. This is a key waste policy where regenerated meets a definition of lubricant recycling in support of sustainability, whereas re-refining to make a fuel is called energy recovery. However, it cannot be counted as a recycling activity.
Unsuitable feedstock components may prejudice the regeneration opportunity, limitations on mixing are in place to prevent that. As we will see in the second article, the process of high-quality re-refining is similar to mainstream refining, but with important differences. The most obvious of these is that refining crude oil is mainly about separating hydrocarbons, whereas re-refining used oil has the challenge of a wide range of contaminants to cope with.
Examples of non-desired components in potential feedstock are water, antifreeze, coolants, water-based and high chlorine content metal working fluids, brake and clutch fluids, and certain synthetic fluids, for example phosphate esters and silicone-based lubricants.
In some countries it is the responsibility of the producer to ensure that the waste of the oil is duly considered, this is not the scenario everywhere. Waste oil generators and collection companies should be encouraged to choose the regeneration solution as the most responsible, sustainable, and carbon-efficient option. The market expects quite soon to see much stronger regulatory guidance in this respect and with the advent of digital waste tracking, a proof of addressing hierarchical deliverables will be required. Waste oil producers should ask their collectors, ‘how is my waste being treated?’
With the hierarchical aim to support regeneration of base oils, then through good guidance and technical competence, which a reputable collector can provide, the mixing of waste oils by broad classes can be made acceptable to most authorities and infringements of the law avoided. In broad terms by appropriate mixing of used oils and avoiding the contaminating classes, some 80%+ of used oil feedstock can be re-refined.
The key messages are: firstly, that the waste oil sector is highly regulated with a strict penalty regime hence as an absolute minimum waste generators or holders are well advised to ensure their collector is appropriately permitted to manage their specific waste streams; secondly, some mixing of waste oils is necessary but within the terms of good guidance; and thirdly, that those wishing to have confidence and proof of resource efficiency credentials and to account for their own carbon performance need to ask their collector ‘will my oil be regenerated or used as fuel?’.
Second step - The role of the waste oil collector.
As outlined above, collectors have a choice as to where to route their raw waste oil volumes for further treatment. They may choose to send it to either a fuel manufacturer or preferably into a base oil regeneration outlet.
For re-refineries a continuous supply of high-quality waste oil feedstock is important in order to maintain
14 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.176 AUGUST 2023
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