Soap, oil and water and Oil spills in the home

We often hear of oil spills in the sea and in the ocean. We know that oil spills are hazardous to marine life and human life as they pollute the water. They can occur when people make mistakes or are careless or an oil tanker leaks oil into the ocean. An oil spill can also occur if equipment breaks down at sea, or a ship carrying a cargo of oil has an accident causing barrels of oil to be dumped in the sea, or if any one of these cargoes accidently breaks open, the oil may leak into the sea. Oil spills are regarded as disasters.

While we are so outraged and shocked at this kind of disaster occurring at sea, we don’t really give much thought to it if it happens at home. We think it only affects us at home and not our environment.

Oils are used in almost all homes in various forms, could be in the kitchen in the form of cooking oils, butter, ghee,  or as oil in a lamp, hair oil, as a domestic lubricant, a massage oil – oh, the list can be endless.

When we accidently spill oil in the home, be it on a counter or on the floor, we need to clean it up. We do not think twice about how we clean up the spilt oil we can use a towel or mop to mop it up, or sprinkle flour over the spilt oil and let the flour soak up the oil and then clean up the floor, and then we wash the oily mop in the sink or the bathroom. Or if we have just had a good oil massage, or have put oil in our hair, we just wash it off when we have a bath or shower, and wash the oil down the drain.

When we use oil to fry things and as a cooking medium, we wash the oily utensils in the sink and that oil too is washed down the drain.

I was quite shocked to read in a newsletter I got in the mail that we don’t clean when we wash oily utensils, but we actually add to pollution!

Do we really stop to think how washing oil down the drain affects our drainage and sewage systems? We know that Oil and water do not mix. Oil floats on the water forming a film on the surface. What makes us think it is going to behave any differently in the drain?

We use soap to clean out the oil, it works as an emulsifier and soap can suspend oil/dirt in such a way that it can be removed. It helps the oil form a “micelle” in the water, it is like a little globule and traps the dirt and fat in it, it does not really mix with the water but remains suspended in it and can be washed or rinsed away.

Over time these “miscelles” form scum or precipitate and harden in the pipes causing a block. And over a long period of time this can cause the pipes to be damages to the extent that they will need to be replaced.  

Soaps also do not work well in hard water. Mixing soap and hard water causes the salts in the water to form scum, and this too is not good for us or our sewage or waste management systems.  

Some ways to dispose cooking oil safely:

If you have oil left over from deep frying food, and are sure you do not want to re-use the oil for food, then you can use that oil to light oil lamps. If you wish to just discard the oil it would be better to burn it than pour it in the sink, it could be used to light camp-fires. (if you have any other suggestions for safely disposing oil, please share your views in the comments box)

If you have to wash oily utensils, then first use a paper towel to clean up as much oil from the utensil as possible and then wash it out with soap and water, this way less oil will get into the drain. If you are going to use a cloth towel to wipe oily surfaces, then remember that you are going to end up washing it in the sink and thus down the drain.

I really do not know the long term effect of washing out oily dirt in the mud and letting the mud soak up the oil. I do know that in olden times, in India, people used crushed bricks and mud instead of soap to wash and clean cooking utensils. They used coconut husk as scrubbers. Usually old houses had their wash areas in the back yard and open to nature, so no oil got into a drain or sewage system underground. It was pretty much open gutters or trenches that took away the used water, and the sun, wind and natural elements dealt with oily substances in the water. But these days we do have sewage systems and we do need to think of keeping them free of toxic build ups. Some sewage and wastage systems just open out into a river or the sea and add to pollution there.

There is not much you can do about washing out hair oil, or massage oil that you may have generously applied on your body, that oil is going to get into the drain anyway, if anyone has a suggestion about how you can reduce that oil from being washed down the drain, you are welcome to add those in the comments box.

All said and done, we need to be careful about washing oil down the drain or come up with some sort of detergent or cleaning agent that will allow oil to dissolve in water, or break it down to a bio-degradable product in the drainage system.