Wanted: 200L open top drums.

[Guest Close David]

Over Easter I did some serious oil searching and found a number of places that produce decent amounts of oil but are just throwing it out in the garbage Dumpster. One amazing find was a local shopping centre of very reasonable size that has no oil collection facilities at all.
I want to put my own oil drums at these places so I can collect this oil that is being wasted.

I need some open top 200L drums and was wondering if anyone here in the Sydney area has any available at their work or knows where I can get some?
I have seen them on evilbay but I figure someone must have a supply that they have to get rid of and would be happy for me to relieve them of a few.

I am also looking for 60L drums for storing clean oil in.

Any help would be appreciated.

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

Hi David,
Not sure where in Sydney but the steel ones with the band type lid can be had for $10 up to $20 each in my area. They are ex Austral Crane and were used to import nuts and bolts. Seen them advertised in then trading post too.
cheers, Michael

[Westwinds Donating Member Find all posts View Profile Close Westwinds]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

David,Make sure that you put a sign on those 200L open top drums that this container and contents is the property of David from Bankstown

[joe Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close joe]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

Hi David

great idea. I've considered it my self. I was wondering how were you considering transporting the oil/tallow from the drum to your home. Are you going to lug it into a car/trailer or decant into another container when you collect. My mate has a mobile pump. 10000/lts an hour type of thing but he can only pump liquid oil.

Some users only use tallow which will make life a little harder.

[Guest Close David]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

Labels will be a must.

At the moment I am looking into starting my own oil collection " company" or co-op. I have to find what the requirements and limitations are as to wether I can meet the requirements of approval and what the legalities are.

If I can't get EPA approval, I believe I could still probably be an unapproved collector if I stay under the limits of what I transport and store at any given time. As I am only looking to collect the oil for personal and non commercial use, I expect a lot of the regulations that would apply to a company collecting 20K litres a week and storing 100K litres would not apply to my purposes.

The main aim of trying to establish a "business" and find out what the regulations are pertaing to used cooking oil collection is so I can approach potential oil suppliers with some credibility and give myself more leverage in convinceing some who may already have collectors serviceing their businesses to allow me to take over.

When I get the info I need, I'll design up some labels and have them printed to go on the Drums with the "business" name and phone number which is required by the oil recyclers association who's site I was looking at the other night.

From what I have heard, the collectors are not all together the most respecting of industries and pinching from other companies drums is not at all uncommon. I have seen some drum designs on the net that are lockable and allow the oil to be put in but prevent them being pumped out.
As a new "competitor", I think my drums would be a target for those companies who are not the most honorable so having them secured may be a good idea in some locations.

[Guest Close David]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

Hey Joe,

I spent some time on the weekend designing a setup and figuring the transportation issue out.

My first idea was to use a trailer but some of the locations I am trying to source oil from in the city would make a trailer less than optimal. I think a better setup would be a ute.

What I did the weekend was fill the Boot of My 300D with plastic 20 and 25L drums. I tried using a 1" petrol Pump and a 1" electric pump driven by a small generator.
The petrol pump worked well but was dam noisy. As I can only get acces to one of my main suppliers after hours when the staff all have removed their cars from the back yard, a quiet option was prefrable. Even if collecting during business hours, the little 2 stroke may have been noisy enough to disturb patrons in a lot of places where the carpark and garbage area are only a fence or wall away.

I was thinking of a vac tank collection setup but that would mean using a tank and for the time being just wanting to use my car for collecting oil, that would be a real pain. I also noticed Vac pumps are exy and not easy to come by. I did find a venturi pump that may work but I'll look at that if my present setup proves unsatisfactory.

I tried the electric pump with the generator and this was much more peaceful and efficent than the petrol pump. I put a ball valve on the discharge side of the pump so it is easy to turn the flow off between drums and not have to worry about turning off the pump or generator. I did see some nozzles like on fuel bowsers on ebay a while back and may even try something like this in future just to look real professional
The electric pump is moving the oil at around 20L a minute which is a decent rate but will do more. I only have a 3/4" pickup hose on a 1" pump atm. One place I collected from had amazing oil that gushed into the 25L drums in 40 seconds flat. It wasn't till I got home and unloaded the drums I realised they must have just changed the oil because it was still hot.
I'll collect it at the same time again this week and if it is hot, I'll filter it straight away and then let the fats settle out and in a couple of weeks filter the oil cold to get the suspended fats out.

If I really pack the drums and the gear in the boot of my car, I can get 250L capacity. If I allow a little more working space, 200L is still easily achieveable. Someone did point out the weight factor to me which was a concern till I figured that 2 people my size or 3 regular size people in the back seat would add up to more than the oil and gear put together. I have had 160L of oil in tins before in there and the self leveling suspention had no problems evening things up with that load.

The benifit of leaving some space is that I can still pick up some drums from the places that are putting the oil back in tins for me.
While 200L or so would be nothing in commercial collection terms, It won't take many full trips a month to satisfy my needs and those I am also collecting for.

I did have 2 let downs on the weekend where some places I had my eye on had large drums full of solid fat instead of oil. The first thing I though of when I saw them was "what kind of pump would pull that out?" but thinking it over I suspect commecrial collectors would likely remove and replace the whole drum rather than try and remove the contents cold. I noticed a few drums that appeared abandoned that were full of fat and wondered if they had been left by collectors that had no way or removing the full drum?

My scouting around over the weekend was very enlightening and showed me there is heaps of oil around and I really don't need to worry about the solid fats. That said, If I do find a convienent supplier, I could always get them to put it in the original open top tins which would be ok to transport and use it for Bio making.

Having the ability to pump from drums does make things a lot easier. I can fit a lot more oil in square plastic drums than round ones and I won't have so much of a problem with getting rid of the empty tins. I'm thinking I may look at taking the plastic drums and a funnel when I collect from the place's that do give me oil in tins and remove the oil and put the tins in their dumpster for disposal to save me having to worry about them.

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

David,
A couple of suggestions.
The "official" collection drums near where I get my oil are the 205 litre metal band + lid type and they have a 20mm mesh steel welded to the lid with a hinged flap over this to keep rain out. The mesh stops pilfering but allows oil to poured in. They are clearly labelled "the property of..."
There are several two stroke 1 inch pumps "water pumps" available that are suitable for diesel transfer. These are now made in China and their price has dropped to around $200 or less on Evil bay. High pressure and high volume but a bit noisy - think whipper snipper noise.
I've been thinking about one of these pumps as a light weight fast transfer system for a while, but can't justify it due to lack of volume. I think they would be ideal for a co-op.
cheers, Michael

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

This is the type of thing. eBay Australia: Petrol Water Pump 1hp - 1" Fittings Prospecting 4 x 4 (item 120106515605, end time 14-Apr-07 21:30:00 AEST)
They usually state in the owners manual 'suitable for diesel transfer', the seals will probably eventually go with WVO but they are easy to replace and readily available - maybe even in viton or equivalent.
There are bigger units that will handle twice the volume and are 4 stroke for around the $220 mark. My guess is that they will empty / transfer 200 litres of liquid wvo in about 3 to 4 minutes.
Michael

[pangit Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close pangit]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

David,

Have you thought about using a rotary hand pump? At the sort of volumes you are talking about it should be enough, particularly if you get one of the twin rotor ones.

It's what I'm planning on getting, as I am trying to arrange to leave a drum at my local pub (they don't like putting it back in the original containers) and use a hand pump to get it into containers in my car. There is a thread with some suggestions to attach cordless drills to speed things up (here)

As for your original question about where to find drums, I got a couple from my local scrap metal place, for $10 each. I also asked at a unit in an industrial estate near me, but they send theirs back for refilling. They had plasic (closed top ones) they were chucking out though, so I acquired a few of those.

[Guest Close David]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

Thank you for the Suggestions gentlemen.

Michael, The pump you linked is the exact same one I tried which was kindly lent to me by a friend. It pumps well but the trouble with it is the thing sounds a lot more like a '70's chainsaw than a weed whacker. The muffler is only tiny especially compared to what is on my little generator which is huge by comparison, as is the noise reduction. I could make up something to attach to the end of the stock muffler to quiet it down I suppose. The advantage of these pumps is they are probably the most lightweight and compact soloution.

I think the drum you describe is the same as what I am thinking of. Even making them up myself will require some expense and significant time so in thinking about it I may wait and see if there is a problem before I spend money trying to fix something that ain't broke as they say.

Pangit, I have thought of a rotary pump and have been following that thread. I'm not sure I would like to pump out a 200L drum at a time with one but I was thinking they may be handy for smaller amounts.

Right now the truth is I haven't pumped enough to really know what I want or will best suit my needs. I am hoping to get a bunch of new suppliers providing me with oil and I'm thinking until I do get a bit more experience with this and figure out what the problems are, I think I'll just stay with what I have till I figure out what improvements need to be made.
The pumping out of drums has the advantage of not having to worry about tins and getting rid of them later and I'm thinking I may try to convert all my suppliers to drums.

The generator/ electric pump works well although is a tad heavy and bulky.
If I substituted the generator for a decent inverter and a car battery, that would reduce the weight and bulk slightly but give me an almost silent pump.
Another idea I have thought of is to use one of those impeller type marine pumps and drive it with a starter motor from a car. These things have huge flow rates and being electric would also be easy to start and stop.

I'll try the places suggested for the drums.
I used to see them around everywhere a while back but of course that was when I didn't want them and now I do, they are nowhere to be found

[Guest Close Marc1]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

Drums for the Bankstown boys.

Bankstown Airport, check the maintenance workshops.
Piles of drums to be had for a tip to the right person.
Throw away drums are ex Methanol mix, an additive for jet engines.

Also ex jet fuel.

Also truck and bus maintenance depos, buy engine oil in drums. The oil company pays $20 for returns so you can have them for $20 every time.

[W123 x 2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close W123 x 2]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

You're right David those two strokes are noisy - just played with one. They can pump wvo but not as fast as I thought. This one might be better though 1.5 inch in and out and a four stroke but it's a bit heavier. eBay Australia: WATER PUMP 38mm (1.5") 4 STROKE gotools BOAT 4 X 4 (item 140105546405, end time 15-Apr-07 20:29:42 AEST)

The other option is the 12volt drill operated hand pump, fastest thing I've ever used. Light, quiet, pumps both directions and if you take the suction pipe of and replace it with hose, it'll go anywhere and get into anything

One day I'll post photos of mine

Michael

[zigparacingtadpole Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zigparacingtadpole]

Re: Wanted: 200L open top drums.

Thinking outside the square....

Compressed air (just like mexican chicken) is the way forward.
Also quieter than a pump.

Or if you want to get really out there.....
Add another power steering pump to the old girl and plumb some connections through to either the front or rear bumper to allow for connection to hoses.

I got my open top 200l drums from a kitchen manufacturer, they had the hot melt glue that they use for laminates in them.