Date:         Thu, 4 May 1995 15:27:48 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         wabbott@townshend.Corp.Megatest.COM (William Abbott)
Subject:      Re: VANAGON digest 445

	Eugene Palmer writes:

 What do you do with flushed brake fluid for instance?  How bad
an oil leak does it have to be before it should be repaired?  I can't say
I'll be surprised if I end up with skin cancer on my own hands after all
these years.  I just hope my latest engine build doesn't leak, I certainly
spent a great deal of effort trying.  I believe the backyard effect on the
environment is at least as great as the actual driving.


	Eugene,
	EASY answer for brake fluid. Look up Toxic Waste in the local
government pages of your phone book, call 'em and get an appointment to
give them the toxic waste. In Santa Clara county they have a collection
date every six weeks or so, and the limit is 5 gallons a year I think.
Its free, in any event, so that's pretty hard to beat.

	Better brands of brake lining don't have asbestos.

	I don't know the rules for recycling ATF or engine coolant, but
I suspect the same toxic waste pickup that takes the brake fluid...

	As far as exposure to awful chemicals, like brake cleaner,
I wear plastic gloves for a lot of this stuff now. And as reported earlier,
I've converted from toxic degreasers to using orange hand cleaner. And yes,
as a matter of fact, I think I would even clean CV parts with it.
	Smooth kind- not the pumice kind though!!

	Back-yard oil disposal is a California scandal- more than the
44,000,000 quarts that the Exxon Valdiz dumped in Prince William sound
are sold, but not recycled, in California, every year. That's a quart and
a third PER RESIDENT and it ain't all getting burned because of old rings
and bad pushrod seals!

	I think of myself as an environmentally sensitive guy, but one
also has to keep a sense of perspective. My very ecological friend 
Richard was just amazed when we visited the La Brea Tar Pits and the
grass and trees grew right up to the edge of the tar. I guess he was
expecting a zone of death a hundred yards wide or something.

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