Waste oil furnace smoke checked by P.E.I.

The P.E.I. Environment Department will be testing emissions from waste oil furnaces, following a ban on the burners in southern Ontario.

The furnaces use the waste from vehicle oil changes for heating, and there are about 30 of them on the Island, most of them at auto repair shops and trucking companies. The burners were made illegal in southern Ontario because of concerns about what was coming out of the furnace stacks, and going into the air.

Additional Excerpt:

John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, said the used oil burners release greenhouse gases and other contaminants, such as lead.

"We've come a long way, and we have to stop looking at the atmosphere as a dump and using people's lungs as a place to put our waste," said Bennett.

"The contaminants in the used engine oil are not in your furnace oil that you're heating your home with."