What do salvage yards do with the gas in junked cars?

Gasoline is expensive, and you're desperate for a way to reduce your weekly bill at the pump. I'll let you know right now that you aren't going to be able to buy discounted "used" gasoline from your local pick-and-pull car salvage yard. And before you ask, you won't be able to go into the yard and siphon the tank of a wrecked car. 

According to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, cars are the most recycled commodity in America, with around 12 million sent to the wrecker every year (about 33,000 a day!) per Recycling International. Many were junked with gas in the tank, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires that every one of them is drained of all fluids before it gets parted out. So what happens to all of that old gasoline? 

Cars can't just drive into the junkyard and sit there. They have to be processed before they can be released out into the yard, where they'll never move under their own power again. Every fluid has to be captured before it can be spilled out in the wild, including gasoline, oil, windshield washer fluid, power steering fluid, and the Freon in the car's air-conditioning system. All of these fluids are the responsibility of the yard to properly dispose. Some of the yards I've been to put the innocuous fluids, like washer fluid, into a gallon jug to resell for a buck or two. So why can't they just do that with gasoline? 

Well, for one thing, getting the permits and complying with regulations to resell gasoline would be extremely expensive. I can't imagine what it would cost to cover the liability of selling an unknown octane- or ethanol-content gasoline to some Joe off the street. 

Read more: When (And Why) Did Cars Switch From Leaded To Unleaded Fuel?

So where does it go?

Each car coming into a yard has up to 10 gallons of fluids onboard, or around 120 million gallons of car gunk per year nationally on the high end. When cars come in to get processed at the junkyard, while the oil is draining out of the engine, a technician usually uses a tool to puncture the bottom of the fuel tank (assuming the manufacturer didn't install a drain plug or valve) and collect what's left. Whatever is collected has to be disposed of by the yard as hazardous waste, and can't be resold even if the world was running out of gas. 

While junkyards aren't allowed to resell these fluids, there's nothing saying they can't use them in their own vehicles. Every auto salvage yard has a tow truck, a yard truck, or a forklift that needs fluids, so a lot of that waste gasoline gets pumped into something that can run on whatever gas you throw into its tank. I'd guess some of those technicians and yard attendants might skim a bit off the top to put in their own daily commuters, too, but don't have any evidence to prove it. If I worked there, I know I would. The stuff that's too contaminated or too old is sent off to a waste disposal center and incinerated.

While it doesn't help you directly, because you can't get a cheap cocktail of gasoline mixture from a wrecker in town, that doesn't mean it doesn't help. If the junkyards needed to pay for thousands of gallons of gasoline per year, operating costs would be higher, and they would pass them along to the consumer. The cheap parts you buy to keep your car running right are subsidized by the yard's supply of free gasoline. 

Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox, and follow us or add us as a preferred search source on Google.

Read the original article on Jalopnik.