Long Beach : $75,000 Grant Will Fund Recycling of Motor Oil

The state has awarded Long Beach a $75,000 grant to help develop a curbside recycling program for used motor oil.

Long Beach, one of 19 cities and counties to receive a grant from the California Integrated Waste Management Board, will match the funds and begin an education program for drivers who change and dispose of their own motor oil.

California drivers use 137 million gallons of motor oil every year, and 54% of that oil is not recycled, said Tom Estes, spokesman for the board. Drivers who throw the oil into garbage cans or in their back yards endanger the state’s drinking water.

“One quart of oil can fowl up to a million gallons of drinking water,” Estes said. “And when people dispose of oil in storm drains, it goes straight out into the ocean.”

Motor oil can be used again to lubricate car engines or to power ships, Estes said.

Long Beach expects to collect 27,000 gallons of oil that would otherwise be disposed of improperly, said James Kuhl, the city’s recycling coordinator.

Residents will be able to put containers of used motor oil on the curb with their other trash when the city’s recycling program begins in November, Kuhl said.

The waste management board issued grants totaling $840,057. The money comes from funds returned to the state by oil companies that overcharged customers for gasoline in the 1970s and ‘80s.