ENVIRONMENT

EPA Refuses to List Used Oil as Hazardous Waste: Despite lobbying by environmentalists and a lawsuit from two high-tech recyclers of used motor oil, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declined to label old oil as a hazardous waste. Evergreen Oil Co. of Newark, Calif., and Safety-Kleen Corp. of Elgin, Ill., had sued the EPA to force a ruling on the issue. Both companies stood to gain if disposal of used oil came under tighter restrictions. Environmentalists prefer recycling the oil to burning it as a boiler fuel oil or disposing of it in landfills. But the EPA worried that service stations would continue to be wary of collecting used oil if stringent handling was required.