Choosing a used oil collector: What fleets should check before signing on

Every fleet shop produces used oil, and most hand it to an outside collector without much thought.

The truck shows up, the tank gets pumped, and the paperwork goes in a drawer. That routine works until something goes wrong: a load gets rejected, an inspector asks for records, or oil your shop generated turns up somewhere it should not. At that point, the collector you picked matters a great deal.

Here is what I would check before signing on with any used oil collector, based on what we see on our routes every day.

Collected oil generally ends up in one of two places: a re-refinery that turns it back into base oil for new lubricants, or a processor that turns it into industrial fuel. Both are legal outlets. Ask which one your oil goes to and the name of the facility. Re-refining recovers the base oil so it can be used again, and the U.S. EPA has estimated that it takes about one-third the energy of refining crude oil to lubricant quality. If your company reports on sustainability, that answer belongs in your numbers.

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