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[melvinrose]

I am new to lapidary sawing. I bought an 18” Hiland Park saw that is like new. It also came with mineral oil in three separate containers. In one container there’s about two gallons of sludge left in the bottom of the container. What is the proper way of disposing of this stuff? Tx, Melvin

[bilquest]

Ugh!  Saw sludge... not fun, and messy too.  Back when I was using mineral oil I would strain it through two brown paper grocery bags in 5 gallon buckets.  It would take months for the oil to filter through, but in the end was just brown paper bags with oily mud that I put in with the normal garbage.  Any strained oil got used the next time I cleaned out the saw.  Since it wasn't a petroleum product I wasn't worried about environmental hazard in the landfill.  If your oil is something else, you might want to contact your local landfill and ask them how to properly dispose of it.

If I ever get a saw like yours, I would also buy an Everclean (tm.) unit from HP.  It spins out the rock into tidy canisters that can easily be disposed.  Good luck!

[melvinrose]

Thanks for the advice. The containers say “low viscosity mineral oil” so I thought that it wasn’t environmentally hazardous but I wasn’t sure. It is what Highland Park sells. A friend of mine uses a mix of diesel and transmission oil. He is storing his sludge in 5 gallon buckets in his shop. He has no idea what he’s going to do with it. His saw stinks so bad when it’s running I have to go outside so I can breathe! Not to mention that if there is ever a fire he’s going to lose his entire shop. We’re talking about going in together and getting a drum of mineral oil and splitting it. Regardless of what he does I’ll never use anything but low viscosity mineral oil.

[vitzitziltecpatl]

Good choice on the mineral oil.

We had friends who tried using a vegetable oil product once. Not as effective and goes rancid on top of that.

[peruano]

Filter the oil and reuse. Put sludge/rock dust/sediment in a plastic bag and dispose of in garbage, or if you are a purist (and nothing wrong with that) take it to hazardous waste.  Compared to the things we know everyone disposes of in the garbage dump, a little rock sediment and mineral oil is lightweight stuff. 

[melvinrose]

Thanks for the advice. I don’t see how mineral oil would not be biodegradable.

[R.U. Sirius]

Thanks for the advice. I don’t see how mineral oil would not be biodegradable.

Unfortunately, mineral oil is very persistent in the environment, and causes lots of damage before it is degraded to any significant extent. Section 2 of this manuscript provides some detail and references for those interested.