Can I Dispose of Used Motor Oil at Walmart? (The Truth!)


Can I Dispose of Used Motor Oil at Walmart

Do you know if I can dispose of used motor oil at Walmart? this is one of the questions our readers ask a lot. Well, we´ve got you covered.

When it comes time to change your car’s motor oil, a big question is often raised: what do you actually do with the old motor oil that you are replacing? Throw it away? Recycle it? Where? If you haven’t done this before, you may have questions like these.

You should always recycle used motor oil. But can you dispose of used motor oil at Walmart? Yes, Walmart is actually a place where you can recycle used motor oil, in most cases. There are a few rare cases where you wouldn’t be able to do this at Walmart, which we’ll briefly discuss.

What Dictates Your Ability to Dispose of Used Motor Oil at Walmart?

If you have visited multiple Walmarts in your life, you’ve probably noticed that they tend to come in a variety of sizes, and they sometimes have certain features that are not universal among them.

For instance, some Walmarts are supercenters, but some offer only groceries.

One of the things that a Walmart store may or may not have based on its size is an automotive center, where they offer car-related services.

Naturally, these are the locations that would sell things like motor oil or do oil changes.

If you want to bring your used motor oil to Walmart for recycling, the Walmart in question must have an automotive center.

After all, if they don’t offer car-related services, they probably won’t have what they need to recycle car-related products.

However, if your Walmart has an automotive center, they will accept used motor oil free of charge, and the process of preparing it and bringing it to them is pretty straightforward and easy.

Read also: Who Makes Walmart Oil – SuperTech (Real FACTS)

What You Need to Do to Bring Used Motor Oil to Walmart

Thankfully, there’s nothing particularly complicated here. Empty your car’s old motor oil into a container that can be tightly sealed.

It doesn’t matter what type of container this is: it can be a gasoline can or even a milk carton. It just has to be sealed so nothing spills out of it.

You should also ensure that you have your old oil filter in hand, preferably cleaned off if you can manage it. You should always change out your oil filter when you change your motor oil, and the filter needs to be recycled as well.

You can bring the filter to Walmart for recycling just like the used motor oil.

Once you have all of that, it’s just a matter of taking it to the automotive center at your local Walmart. Usually, you’ll be able to hand it off to an automotive center employee.

However, if you aren’t sure what to do, there are two options.

Naturally, you can just ask an employee about the process of handing off your motor oil or what they want you to do with it.

If you want to know what to do before you even get there, you can generally call Walmart ahead of time and ask them what their process is, so you can avoid any awkward situation.

Nearly every location that accepts used motor oil does so for free, but we can’t say with absolute certainty that no Walmart out there would charge you.

Even if they did, it would be pretty cheap.

Read also: Does Walmart Recycle Transmission Fluid (Explained!)

Why Recycle Instead of Disposing of it Yourself?

There are a few products that you just can’t throw away like everything else, due to special considerations. Batteries are one such example: you aren’t supposed to just throw those in the trash.

Motor oil is another one of those products. It has a very high potential to be environmentally destructive, especially if it just gets poured into the grass or down a drain.

Filled with anti-freeze and a lot of other chemicals, motor oil can cause a lot of problems when disposed of incorrectly.

You could try to do other things, like reuse or re-process used motor oil, but these are bad ideas as well. You should never reuse old motor oil because it has already lost the properties that allowed it to benefit your car in the first place.

As for re-processing, very few people have the right tools or knowledge to safely do that. All of that said, recycling your used motor oil at a local Walmart is simple and usually free.

For that reason, we urge everyone to recycle their used motor oil if they can.

Even if, for some reason, you cannot manage to recycle your used motor oil at a point in time, you can put it in a sealed container and store it somewhere until you do have time to recycle it, which also comes at no cost to you.

Summary

If you want to recycle your used motor oil, you can usually do that at any location that sells motor oil. That includes Walmart that has automotive centers.

When doing this, you must put the used oil in a sealed container, and you should probably bring your cleaned-up oil filter as well.

You can call ahead of time or ask an employee when you get there to see what they might want you to do with the recycled oil.

Most of the time, the process will be free, though we can’t speak for every single Walmart location out there.

Disposing of your used motor oil is very dangerous, so you should recycle it when you can.


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Thank you for reading this article. I hope it helps you find the most recent and accurate technical and repair information for your car. Here are some tools that I use as an automotive technician and hope you´ll also find helpful.

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References

https://thecampingadvisor.com/does-walmart-take-used-oil

Jeff

Jeff is an automotive technician, technical writer, and Managing Editor. He has held a lifelong passion for cars, with a particular interest in cars like the Buick Reatta. Jeff has been creating written and video content about transportation, automotive, electric cars, future vehicles as well as new, used for more than 18 years. Jeff is based in Boulder, Colorado.

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