Recycling of oil-filled transformers

[woodchips]

This is good, a range of opinions from a range of people.

Quite why it is assumed I will burn oil from transformers in an oil drum I don't know. I rely on the management of the scrap metal industry to perform their job in a legal way.

The capacitors in the 628A sig gen were from a piece of equipment dated well after the banning of PCBs in 1978, HP obviously didn't do a stock check to see whether they had any now banned parts and not use them, unless it was legal to use items bought before the cut off date.

If you want to find out more about the EPA read By The People by Charles Murray. The evidence presented does not say very much for these agencies. If you have had the misfortune to contact English Nature then you might recognise some things.

If you want to find out what the EPA should be doing then read Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell. Here the evidence is presented that the EPA should help the people of Lousinana with the amount of pollution spread around and not treated.

You can of course discount these books, your choice.

But, compared to the amount of carbon being put into the atmosphere possibly the bits of PCBs is irrelevant. It seems to me that the environment is teetering on an edge, and something needs to be done, but won't. Do you jet off for a weekend in Italy to see the sun? Do you drive your car 50 miles to a nice restaurant? Do you have your house heated to 22C? I do none of these things because I think it is important.

Not really vintage radios I suppose, but how much Berellium have you used, far worse than PCBs. How much Berellia is used on modern cars, with 110KW charging of the batteries? High power LED lights as well, and so it goes on.

We are responsible for the environment of the world, other countries seem not to care.

Keep the comments coming please.

[The Philpott]

I didn't realise until recently that potentially the BALLAST in an old fluorescent fitting may contain this oil- (as well as the capacitor.)
I have an old one acting as a stabilising weight, bolted to the bottom of the bird table in the garden. Steadily more and more rusty- best add it to the WEEE pile on a precautionary basis..
Dave

[Glowing Bits!]

I don't know why there's such a fuss happening about a small amount of PCB, the new Berwyn prison is built on the old Firestone site, the whole land is a toxic wasteland, even the nearby river is seen as being toxic.
No one wanted to buy the land, apart from HMP, knowing full well what's buried there!

[Refugee]

Have a look at this link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalite
As they have been cleaning the old site each layer gave off the smell of what was made there as the layer of contamination was laid down.
Look at the section about dioxin contamination.

[murphyv310]

Originally Posted by RogerWalker

Thanks everybody for such rapid and constructive replies. I would love to sell them as-is, but wonder what market ther is for 500-0-500V 200mA transformers, except for builders of homebrew transmitters? Some are even higher voltage, ex-oscilloscope etc and some are just low voltage high current filament transformers. Being heavy [up to 8kg] the cost of packing and sending anywhere would be prohibitive and [being located here in mid Wales] the chances of someone collecting them shrinks the market opportunities somewhat.
I had considered all that before deciding to go the salvage route: draining off the coolant oil and then incinerating at a temperature just low enough not to melt the copper but hot enough to decontaminate residual oil [ie; big bonfire temp!], then remove cladding and then break open the lams to get a bobbin and copper. Best offer I have had so far is 30p/kg, but a friend on here reckons he can get £1/kg as-is and up to a fiver/kg semi-stripped down.

Anyone any experience selling such items for salvage please?

I even have a homebrew PSU with 730V dc at 150mA and multiple 6.3V and stabilised bias supplies that I can hardly lift off the ground!

Hi.
8kg is hardly heavy. I recently sold an item at 14kg and the cost was under a tenner. Just make sure you quote for packing as well as the carrier charge.

Although MIL spec that doesn't actually mean it contains PCBs. Don't get paranoid. I was told that some oil filled line transformers were PCBs and mineral oil. On examination by a chemist they were non PCB and vegetable oil!!

[Ed_Dinning]

Hi Gents, to draw a parallel, it is highly likely that smoking kills many more than PCB, but the level of paranoia is many times lower

Ed

[Refugee]

There are other things out there that have been found in living people and animals. So far for I have not seen a report of any kind of ill effect short of an item containing them has been swallowed whole causing choking.
The world is getting paranoid.

[Glowing Bits!]

On the subject of paranoia, the same happened in the past with radium, the radiation did not kill the women, licking the brush did.
PCB is likely to be safe if it's not touched with bare skin and certainly not eaten.
What's safer, a small transformer with a bit of oil or a house fire with the contents being plastic?
As for asbestos being dangerous, there is a sheet behind the log burner, it has yet to kill anyone.

[Station X]

A thread about the safe disposal of a transformer that may contain PCB has drifted off into pure speculation and ungrounded relativistic statements about what is or is not more dangerous than PCB.

An expert opinion was given in post #19.

The moderators have agreed that it's time to close this thread before it attracts any more blanket pronouncements on bio toxins from a place of pure conjecture.

Thread closed.

[RogerWalker]

The Moderators closed the thread before I'd had a chance to thank all the contributors.

I had no idea what a hornets' nest I had kicked over when I asked the first faltering questions - but boy, did I get some brilliant answers!

Thanks guys - I have quarantined the transformers for the moment and will continue to research legal and ethical ways of disposal that I can afford. I think we all learned something from the exercise, so well done for all your six penn'orths!