What can (should) one do with old gasoline?

In My Humble Opinion
21

This was never an option, believe me. We have 3 mostly wooded acres, also mostly covered with dead leaves, as I refuse to rake 3 acres. Even tho this county permits open burning, I won’t do it.

I did find a site that said one could filter the gas, then mix it at 5:1 in fresh gas. I figure in my 21 gallon tank, once I burn off about 3 gallons, I’ll dump 2 of the older stuff in, and I should be fine. It’ll save me a coupla bucks and gradually rid us of it.

xbuckeye, there aren’t a lot of oilwells in southern Maryland, so I think I’ll pass on that option. We do have convenience centers where we can get rid of oil and oil filters, but no gas, alas.

22

Perhaps a drive to the oil fields of Pennsylvania? I hear they’re pretty this time of year.

In Indiana they recommend soaking it up with cat litter or sawdust, putting it in a leakproof container and dispersing small amounts with each trash pickup

In Maine they recommend storing it…apparently forever and ever and ever and ever, wash, rinse, repeat

In Minnesoooota they tell you to give it to a farmer to use in a tractor that isn’t very picky about fuel.

I also saw adding 1-2 gallons at a time into your car, I forget which state said that. Rhode Island says to use it in a 1/5 ratio with ‘new gas’

In Canton, OH, they say “For older gasoline or gas/oil mixes, look under “Oils-Waste” in the yellow pages for a company that will take residential material.”

23
      • Dump it into the ground somewhere convenient? (like an annoying neighbor’s lawn…) I have some from when my mower wouldn’t start (there’s a thread about lawn mower fuel filters somewhere). The fuel had sat in the mower over the winter, and whatever’s in it sure kept the mower from starting. I sure as hell ain’t going to be putting it in my car. Gas stations (in IL-USA anyway) don’t have any way to dispose of bad gasoline. I know about the cat-litter thing, we used cat litter to soak up gas when I worked at a gas station but that was thrown into a huge dumpster. If trash companies smell flammable liquids in your trash, they can refuse to pick it up completely. And then what does one do with the trash? Dump it out next to the can of paint?.. (see below…)
  • I have the same situation with a can of deck stain (paint). It’s full/unused, but it’s so old that the can is about to rust out anyway. I left it at the trash once but they refused to take it; some people advised me to open it until it dries and then the trash truck would take it, but I left it open for two weeks now and it isn’t drying at all, the top 20% is liquid/oil. I live in unincorporated area so I can’t take trash to the city dump myself; paint shops charge $10 to dispose of it, and all they do with it is they get to throw it in the city dump. So I’ll probably just be leaving it tipped on the ground somewhere…
  • I’d like to do the right thing here, but they have laws agains that apparently. :dubious:
    ~