What do you guys do with your coolant after a flush.
Autozone guy said throw it down the drain but I wasn't sure...

Ben

 

Throw it down the drain would be the incorrect answer.

Check with your city. They usually have drop off places for the stuff.

 

Throwin down the drain would be the I'm-lazy-n-don't-giva-shiite way of disposing the old coolant. Like Karps said, check with the city.

 

What department do I call. The phone book has them listed by city department. I didn't see anything that said trash or disposal or anything?

Ben
"Doesn't really like dealing with the city..."

 

ask at a auto repair shop, they may take your old coolant for free, or they may have a small charge to take it.

 

i take mine to discount with my oil

 

i always let it evaporate!

 

Feed it to Fido! He loves it!

 

Autozone = throw it down the drain?

Wow, what a bunch of idiots.

Call any garage in your area and ask em, they might just tell you to bring it on by. That, or call a quickie oil change place, they might take it too.

City department...id say the water or sewer department would like to know that the local autozone is telling people to just pour used antifreeze down the drain.

 

just a note.... in our city if the coolant you pour down the drain is a city water treatment plant connected waste line then the city can actually filter it out of the water with there system, obviously your better off just taking it somewhere but i know that our citys water/waste dept told our school that if we poured some or spilled some into the drains that it wouldnt be an issue. But thats our city IDK about others... just my

 

How many times do you change your coolant? Once, twice, three times a year?

5 gallons worth?

Putting that down the drain or on the ground is not going to hurt anything.



But don't worry.... Mrs. EPA will probably hear about this and enact some law that will make it illegal to buy coolant just like it will be with the paint in a few years.

 

Mdricken antifreeze is harmful to people,animals and plants.It gets into the soil which absortion it eventually get's into underground water.Are you,or any neighbors,using a well for potable water(or even water lawns/gardens)?The people at Auto Zone should definitly know better too.

Some parts stores are collection points for used oils/solvents/coolants.Antifreeze can be recycled/cleaned just like refrigerants.Check with some of your larger local repair shops.

Yes the water treamant plants can filter/separate coolant.But it creates a problem and is harmful to the good bacteria they use to break down waste solids.And if they get an excessive amounts at lift station it can be traced to where it's dumped.

 

with coolram, i do not just and would not dump coolant on to the ground, if i spill a tad bit well, ooops, oh well, but i wont flush my cooling system and then drop it on the ground, especially because i have well water. my comment about the citys stand on it was just that, what they told our teacher in our auto class, we do recycle coolant by the way, but spills or leak do happen ... sometimes you cant prevent that....

 

I'm not advocating that every corner shop start dumping their coolant on the ground. That would be dumb and it would have consequences. Or if you are some racer who has to change his fluid every other weekend, please dont throw that on the ground either...

All I'm saying is that you can do almost anything once. Wells are 100+ feet deep if not 200 feet down. By the time that your gallon of coolant, oil, brake fluid, or whatever makes it that far it will be so diluted that it won't matter.

I grew up in the country where we dumped all our fluids on the ground. We were just careful not to dump it near the well. To this day my parents have cleaner water than I do in the city

 

- Agreed on the issue..

 

In PA no one knows what to do with used coolant. I asked. Last time, I took it down with me to VA and disposed of it down there.

 

liek i said, let it evaporate, after the length of time it took everyone to make this thread the size it is, you could have had a milk carton with the cap off, and it be half way gone already.

evaporating the antifreze does nothing to anyone, as long as the local pets dont drink out of it.

 

I beleive pep boys will accept used coolant. Whether they do or not, here's what I did. I threw it in a 5 gal bucket (3 actually, i had some from a few cars), and left it on pep boys stoop by their service bays, one night when they were closed. So at that point, they probably dumped it in with their recycling. end of story. These stupid places should be accepting old oil/coolant, etc, since they sell the new stuff. Now, whether they did the right thing, I'll never know, but I figured they should have a recycling policy due to the volume of service they do.

 

Intresting thread.I just put it in a big sparkletts bottle and drop it off at "Autozone" j/k.After hearing what autzone tells there customers I would never.
Next time I have some used antifreeze Im gonna drop it off at jiffy lube.

 

Most cities have a hazerdous waste disposal dropoff place. Just call a few city offices untill you find the answer. for Oil i take it to the zone in a 10 gallon bucket (they say only 3 containers of it per customer, never anything about how big the container is). Antifreze either evaporates or gets taken to the city place.

 

Jiffy Lube will take used oil and coolant.

 

i just sneek to the corner late at night and drop it in the sewer! haha, this is a great thread, now i have an idea where to drop this stuff off rather than store it into containers till it becomes a problem