Used gasoline disposal

Good question, had me searching locally. Supposedly there is somewhere that accepts gasoline:

Recycle Paints, Solvents, Pesticides & Gasoline - Province of British Columbia

Except nothing concrete on that page. A few phone numbers.

I did see mention elsewhere, that some industries that use waste oil fired heaters/generators will accept gasoline.

 

How about dilute the old gas with fresh and then run it in the lawnmower, not the Prius?

 

I dont use my old gas in the car but I do mix it with four or so gallons of new spring gas in a 5 gallon gas container and use it throughout the mowing season.

 

My neighborhood gas station will let me add my couple of gallons to their in-ground tank if I ask nicely. As long as it's straight gas and not a two-stroke mixture. Worth asking.

I always use Stabil AND before putting it away for the winter, I let the mower sit running until it stopped because it ran out of gas (too much effort to siphon, plus I thought this would be more complete). Still had a carburetor problem this Spring. Mowers are finicky.

 

When I had about a pint of used brake cleaner, I put a layer of kitty litter in a shallow/wide pan, poured brake clean over it, set it on the back doorstep. Once a day I would give it a stir, till (after about a week) it was bone dry. Then I bagged and disposed of the kitty litter in the garbage. And resolved to use less brake cleaner in future.

 

No problem using the "old" gas in a car if it isn't TOO old.
6 months should NOT be a problem in a lawn mower either though.

BUT putting in TOO MUCH stabilizer can be a problem.

What they really are trying to tell you is that the carb was gummed up and they are guessing that it just happened in the previous 6 months........when it probably really accumulated over the previous YEARS.

A recommended dose of a good carb cleaner twice a year might prevent future problems.
Gumout and Berrymans B12 are good. SeaFoam not so much.

 

Even very old gas can be added in small doses to a normal car, just make sure there is no rust or sediment.

I just used my $3.99 harbor freight transfer pump special to move about 3 gallons of fuel from portable equipment. I dumped it straight into the truck.

After...
I added enough seafoam to the empty tank to briefly start the rider then added fresh 87 rug once it choaked. (I’ve had lots of issues with the rider gumming up over the winter)

I got away this year without needing to tear in and clean the carb on the rider the first time, I used no additives, left a full tank of E0 and removed it before operation

plan on doing the same next year

 

When my Grandfather passed away, we discovered he had a metal shed in the backyard absolutely filled with ANCIENT everything. Paints, Gasoline, Oil...none of it viable for use.
At least in Oregon there is/was a disposal site that would take almost all of those type of materials.

I don't know about Iowa, but I would just start with Google and the phrase, " Disposal of used Gasoline Iowa " and see what comes up. You may have to make some phone calls.
Unfortunately, with all the chemicals, solvents and even non-viable gasoline in the world, you're not alone.
If you don't want to try to slowly....mix it in and use it? You should be able to find someplace that deals with handling this material.

I personally wouldn't want to try to use it in my vehicle. I mean if a repair shop found it to be so bad as to site it as the cause of my lawnmower not working, I'm not putting it in my car. Even in small diluted doses.
I think I would be working towards finding a approved site for disposal. At least in Oregon they exist with a little digging.

Good Luck.

Actually, I think I Googled "State of Oregon Hazardous Waste Collection" as a start.

 

offer used “stuff” like that for free and lots of folks will take it off your hands.

If that doesn’t work paid disposal is the last resort , our disposal site
1. Charges
2. Is open like 2 hours a day Mon-Thurs (before covid)
3. Limits how much you can take there per month.

they are not always the best/easiest option as there are commercial interests that want much of that stuff and they don’t make you bend over backwards to catch them open and have to fill out 10 pages of forms

 

Well, it was a bit of a discovered nightmare in regards to my Grandfathers shed. He was "Great Depression" era, and just had the attitude that you didn't get rid of ANYTHING. So he had Oil, Gasoline, Solvents...you name it, that really I don't think anyone would want. Literally the only potential value, was in the perhaps antique value of some of the containers. But the stuff itself, was just a hazard and I wouldn't of offered it to anyone.

Maybe it does differ from State to State, region to region, and maybe time to time. But Oregon has a Metro system that actually is very good at accepting and properly disposing, recycling these type of materials. There was a base charge, I think it was $5.00, but it wasn't at all prohibitive.
They seemed actually happy that we were bringing them these potentially hazardous materials. And WE were happy to get rid of them.

 

Yeah ours is changed to “by appointment only,”
our recycling center it appears is also by appointment only (during normal business hours)

they charge by item or by the pound, as stated every area is very different

 

You are assuming that the "repair shop" really knows what they are talking about.
Given a LOT of bad stories on here and other similar sites, I think that assumption is a BIG stretch.

 

One search result for me made mention of places that burn waste oil, for heat, to produce electricity or whatever: that they'd accept old gas.

 

Not really, I'm just going by the information presented in the OP's post. I'm not saying anything about the repair shops evaluation. But I am assuming Old gas in....mower wasn't working, new gas in mower working.

IF you go buy the ONLY information available, which IS the OP's presentation, and the OP is asking what to do with the gasoline, NOT whether the repair shop was right in their repair approach, then I'm offering my opinion on an answer.
I'm making no assumption at all.

If anything YOU are assuming the repair DOESN'T know what they were talking about.
Well, apparently the Mower is working.
And the OP really wasn't asking for an opinion as to whether the repair shop knows how to evaluate bad gasoline. So I never gave one.

 

Yes, that is an assumption......since other things might have been done too and the OP (or the shop) didn't mention that.
Perfectly good gas should NOT go totally bad in just 5 months to the point that it won't work at all in a healthy engine anymore.
I quit. Another pointless hassle.

 

Sorry but my post was communication aimed at giving an answer to the OP. It was never intended to be an argument about whether the gas was actually good or bad, or the repair shop knew what they were doing.
As I said, I can only go with the information as presented in the original post, and the OP was asking about opinions concerning getting rid of the gasoline. They did NOT ask..."Do You Think The Gasoline is still Good?" or "Do You Think the Repair Shop was wrong".
So sight unseen, and not being the person talking to the repair shop, I'm not ASSUMMING the repair shop was wrong about the gasoline.

That's neither the posed question, nor the answer the OP was looking for.

If your contention is that the gasoline is probably fine? And you'd be OK with putting it into your vehicle? Thats HOKEY DOKEY, but it is YOU making the assumption the gasoline is fine, which is NOT how it's presented in the OP's post.

 

I know a couple folks who work in the gas industry and they just bring stale gasoline back to a gas station and dump it right in the pump complex.
They know the owners and the gas station could care less about getting .001% free fuel.

the industry view is that old but not contaminated gasoline is harmless in small quantities. Even in the case of a diesel It could be considered “beneficial “ added to a diesel pickup in cold weather.

this is why just adding some fresh gasoline to stale can sometimes be enough to get a motor to start and enough to prevent gum forming immediately after startup.

(if I look I could even provide a link to the oil worker commenting)

 

Well, I'm not even arguing that the gasoline IS bad.
But the title of the thread is "Used Gasoline Disposal", so that's how I formulated my response. To answer that question.
I actually agree:

IF I'm pressed to assume or speculate I would guess that the problem with the gasoline in the lawnmowers engines probably has more to do with the condition of the gas tanks themselves, than the gasoline in them. Which is why the repair shop is suggesting siphoning the gasoline out of the tanks every fall before storage.
And yes, I would agree that gasoline should be viable for usage.
But if I go this route? Then I am speculating and assuming a lot.

And my bottom line?
Cars expensive...Lawn Mowers much cheaper, gasoline cheap.
So to me? And this IS just me, I'm not taking the risk of pouring something that I put in my lawnmower (that then wasn't working) into my vehicle.
Maybe if kept safely in an approved container after siphoning, I pour it back into my Lawnmower that Spring, but I'm not risking any damage to my vehicle, just to use up a little gasoline. If I'm experimenting here, it's only from Lawnmower to approved container and then back to Lawnmower.
Otherwise? I say, find that recycling center and just get rid of it. You're not messing with storing it, and it takes any risk to vehicle or lawnmower out of the equation.

 

Use non ethanol gas in your mowers and small engines. The problem isn't "old gas". I've used gas over a year old that ran fine. The problem is with the ethanol in the gas. If you allow it to sit in the carb it dries and becomes gummy and clogs things up. I usually drain gas from chainsaws and leaf blowers, and run the mowers until they are dry. That worked even before I started using ethanol free gas.
it certainly won't hurt anything to put a gallon or so into a car (any car) as long as it's clean.