EVERY now and then our motor vehicles need fresh oil for lubrication.
Most of you would have seen that horrible orange light coming on on your car's dashboard when the oil is getting low. It is an easy exercise then to top up the car with oil at the nearest petrol station.
During the service of the car the motor oil is replaced, but have you ever spent some time thinking where the old used oil goes to?
Well, responsible service stations will collect the used oil and most frequently the Rose Foundation then accumulates, stores and recycles the used oil.
The word "ROSE" is an acronym that stands for 'Recycling Oil Saves the Environment.'
The Rose Foundation comprises of representatives of all the main lubricant marketers in South Africa.
Let us assume a car requires about five litres of oil and approximately four litres of oil gets drained during an oil change.
It is generally accepted that one litre of used oil can contaminate one million litres of water.
So the reckless disposal of used oil from a single serviced car can contaminate more than four million litres of water. If you use 100 litres of water a day for washing, drinking water, it implies that water that could have sustained a single person for 110 years would be polluted.
With Christmas around the corner many people will service their cars before the long holiday haul, or at least check and probably replace their car tyres, water levels, and filters and fuel and oil filters.
If your car's oil does get drained, please enquire how and where the used oil will be disposed of, so as to help encourage environmentally friendly ways of disposal take place. lLotz is a Nedbank carbon specialist.
- As always, we would like to hear from you what you deem to be important and what topics you would like to discuss. Please include 'Sowetan Column' in the title of your comments or critiques end send it to: sustainability@nedbank.co.za.
- Definition: Used lubricating oil or waste oil, typically from the crankcase of internal combustion engines (mainly run on petrol or diesel).
- Used oil is also produced and collected from other operating equipment and includes products such as hydraulic oils and gear and transmission oils. - Rose Foundation, www.rosefoundation.org.za
- Food for thought: Do you realise that just one litre of used oil can contaminate one million litres of water?" - Rose Foundation.
Avoid reckless disposal of oil
EVERY now and then our motor vehicles need fresh oil for lubrication.
Most of you would have seen that horrible orange light coming on on your car's dashboard when the oil is getting low. It is an easy exercise then to top up the car with oil at the nearest petrol station.
During the service of the car the motor oil is replaced, but have you ever spent some time thinking where the old used oil goes to?
Well, responsible service stations will collect the used oil and most frequently the Rose Foundation then accumulates, stores and recycles the used oil.
The word "ROSE" is an acronym that stands for 'Recycling Oil Saves the Environment.'
The Rose Foundation comprises of representatives of all the main lubricant marketers in South Africa.
Let us assume a car requires about five litres of oil and approximately four litres of oil gets drained during an oil change.
It is generally accepted that one litre of used oil can contaminate one million litres of water.
So the reckless disposal of used oil from a single serviced car can contaminate more than four million litres of water. If you use 100 litres of water a day for washing, drinking water, it implies that water that could have sustained a single person for 110 years would be polluted.
With Christmas around the corner many people will service their cars before the long holiday haul, or at least check and probably replace their car tyres, water levels, and filters and fuel and oil filters.
If your car's oil does get drained, please enquire how and where the used oil will be disposed of, so as to help encourage environmentally friendly ways of disposal take place. lLotz is a Nedbank carbon specialist.
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