How are we disposing of white spirit?

Ice and a slice down under the railway arches?

I normally start my bonfires with it. Not that I have many, maybe 3 a year, but its good for getting it going.

I find a pre-2013 vintage pairs well with red meat, wheras later years sit better with white meat and fish. Anything post 2020 is best quaffed down the park straight out of a paper bag.

My local tip tells me to put it in the same barrel as they use for used engine oil and brake fluid, all gets burned by the incinerator power station a few miles away apparently.

Just how manky? If you leave it for a while most of the muck settles to the bottom. You can then carefully decant the fairly clean spirit to another bottle.

A lighter normally does it.

i collect all the different sorts of oils that I use - white spirit, brake oil, isopropyl alcohol etc that isn't clean enough to be reused into a big 5l container that one day may make it to the dump if it ever gets filled.  Otherwise I leave it to my children

edit: + what nickjb says, things like white spirit sit in a jar so I can decant it for the jobs where it doesn't need to be quite so clean

With the waste oil at the tip.

Although usually I just filter it once in a blue moon and chuck the filter paper and sediment in the bin. The grubby oily liquid can just be re-used indefinitely for cleaning.

Filter it to remove grit; add some chopped herbs - voila!
A tasty marinade!

I let it settle out. If it's paint, the residues go on the garage floor

I realize now I am turning into my dad😄

Hadn’t thought of filtering it. Good shout.

I just let all the crap in it settle and then pour it into a new bottle to use next time. Then eventually dispose of it at the time with the oil and other crap liquids.

Just how manky? If you leave it for a while most of the muck settles to the bottom. You can then carefully decant the fairly clean spirit to another bottle.

This. Then throw the filter or rag in the bin. The rag is also good for cleaning up the spillages as I always spill it putting it into another jar. 

The Mrs complains as she can smell it for a few days. 

In one!

or

Leave out side to evaporate.

There was a story in our local paper about 50 years ago when I was a lad about a woman who had been decorating and had poured some leftover white spirit or similar down the toilet. Husband came home from work and sat on the bog while having a fag then dropped the tab in the bowl!

There was a story in our local paper about 50 years ago when I was a lad about a woman who had been decorating and had poured some leftover white spirit or similar down the toilet. Husband came home from work and sat on the bog while having a fag then dropped the tab in the bowl!

I thought that was a gag from On the buses. 

I filter it and then reuse it if just for degreasing chains and so on.

Otherwise it goes in a suitable container and goes to the tip at some point.

Well I spat it all over the place when I took a big ol' swig by accident.

So.. atomize it across the garden.

I used to filter it and keep reusing

I wonder what painters and decorators do with their left over used white spirt as surely they get through more than we do

nickjb
Free Member

Just how manky? If you leave it for a while most of the muck settles to the bottom. You can then carefully decant the fairly clean spirit to another bottle.

Yep, this. Doesn't even need much care, I just have 2 identical cleaning tubs and pour it off from one to the other

decant the fairly clean spirit to another bottle

Careful what type of bottle though, as I found out https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/white-spirit-vapour-escaping/

How are folk ditching their white spirits? Thanks

Keep it for your mother in law at Christmas, may need a strong mixer to cover the taste.

@garagedweller it could well have been, I just remember my Dad telling me about it. He also said that when the ambulance men came and took him away on the stretcher when he told them what happened they laughed that much they dropped the stretcher and he broke his leg!
Was he having me on all those years!

Save it up for summer, it's weedkiller for overgrown trails 🙂

some absolute throbber on my street chucks in down the drain. I smell it in our main bathroom, where we've got some odd (shit) arrangement of breather vents, about once a month, sometimes really strongly.

I wonder what painters and decorators do with their left over used white spirt as surely they get through more than we do

When we moved in to our present house and had it painted I asked the painter what he did with unused/unusable paint. He said he puts it in the bin. So I'm not convinced asking what he does with white spirit woudl have been very informative 🙁

Dutifully stored mine up in a container once and took it to the tip, asked the guy where to put it and he took off me saying "I'll deal with it for you"  - and lobbed it in the general waste skip. For that much (no more than a litre) it really doesn't matter, so now I just keep it (after filtering & reusing etc)  in an old bottle and chuck it in the grey bin when done.

have often wondered about this with part empty paint cans, as local tip says they are a no no unless you open them and harden the paint off by adding sand.  As a result we must have a dozen party empty tins in the garage that will have gone well past their good by date and could do with disposal.

I'd be surprised if many follow the harden rule, so presume they just go in the general domestic rubbish bin

I thought the old oil from local tips was cleaned and reprocessed, rather than burnt. Burning it would probably produce nasties that would need a scrubber on the flue. So I've not put other stuff like brake fluid and white spirit in with it. Last time I labelled the brake fluid bottle and left it for them to decide.

If your grey bin waste is incinerated, which most is these days then a bit of white spirit or old paint will be helpful in the incineration process. That's what the old oil will most likely go into, saves them hosing so much other fuel into the incinerator.

I thought the old oil from local tips was cleaned and reprocessed, rather than burnt.

Don't think you could with some of the additives and toxic elements in modern oils, i know when we were changing oils in "latest" gen transmissions (15+ years ago) the liquid had to go in a different barrel for recycling. Not in the big IBC full of used ATF.

Burning it would probably produce nasties that would need a scrubber on the flue.

Most/All commercial sized operations will have scrubbers and filters anyway.

Nah it's all incinerated. There are probably some filters on the exhaust. All our work chemical waste goes that way and we probably produce more nasty stuff in a day than the average person in a lifetime.

Solvents might be distilled. We used to use cleaning solvent at work which was reclaimed.

Landfill is where the issues are. Some of the big paint companies take waste back. It can be recycled in some cases. They also used to make specific hardening products that meant it could go as normal non hazardous waste. Problem is it cost money.

I just store paint until it naturally hardens 15years later.

I thought the old oil from local tips was cleaned and reprocessed, rather than burnt. Burning it would probably produce nasties that would need a scrubber on the flue. So I’ve not put other stuff like brake fluid and white spirit in with it. Last time I labelled the brake fluid bottle and left it for them to decide.

Probably depends where in the country you are.

Near a refinery I'd have expected it to end up in the crude for reprocessing.

Elsewhere probably incineration. And yes there's a lot of work that goes into cleaning the flue gas, bear in mind the partial and complete combustion products of PVC are way nastier than brake fluid or white spirit.

leave it to evaporate off and put the dried residue in the bin. Its in liquid form that it will cause the most environmental damage - getting into waterways etc. Same with paint.

If you can't be bothered to dispose of it at the tip or wait for it to dry out and there is only a small quantity, pour it onto some soil or sand/sawdust and then bag and bin that.

As a result we must have a dozen party empty tins in the garage that will have gone well past their good by date and could do with disposal.

In my experience, the most common way of disposing of paint is to leave it behind for the next owner of your house.

Surely the hierarchy would suggest evaluating why cleaning chains with something so horrible?

When we moved the new house had loads of old paint, we ended up opening each one and mixing in soil, sand and sawdust, pine needles etc until it was a solid blob. Tip were happy to take it then.

Cat litter is also good

leffeboy

Full Member

i collect all the different sorts of oils that I use – white spirit, brake oil, isopropyl alcohol etc that isn’t clean enough to be reused into a big 5l container that one day may make it to the dump if it ever gets filled. Otherwise I leave it to my children

I would love to be there when they read your will out

Place in a shallow pan and you can burn it under your Tesla to pre-warm the battery in the winter. <br /><br />
STW FACT 😜