Spent Oil Management and its Recycling Potential in India Inventory and Issues

In India, there are 36,165 industries, generating 62,32,507 Metric Tonnes of Hazardous Waste (HW) every year. However, Generation of recyclable HW is the highest in the country. Recyclable waste attributes to the dominant HW treatment option 49.55% followed by land disposable (43.78%) and incineration (6.67%) respectively. Under the Hazardous Wastes (Management, Handling & Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008 the processes generating HW were finalized, yet the differentiation of quantum of HW generation based on types of HW i.e used/waste oil, lead waste, zinc waste etc. has been highlighted first of its kind as an inventory in the present study. There are about 257 Spent oil (Used/Waste Oil) registered recycling facilities distributed across 124 districts spread over 19 states in India with the total spent oil recycling capacity as 1.39 MMT. Thus India has a huge recycling potential with a greater yield while considering the generation of used oil and waste oil from automotive sector and manufacturing industries. The major constraint faced in recycling waste/used oil is cost of the collection, storage & subsequent transportation of the waste to the recycling unit.