Crutch Crupnik and I were talking the other day about how we should do our part to help save the planet.

The subject came up as Crutch was adding 10 quarts of motor oil to his three-quarter ton diesel pickup truck.

“That’s a lot of oil, it’s too bad you don’t recycle it,” I said with a great amount of sarcasm.

“Don’t start on me again,” he warned. “I don’t dump it down the drain anymore.”

For as long as I can remember, Crutch has performed his own oil changes on his vehicles.

He now collects the waste oil and disposes of it when he accrues about 55 gallons.

Sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it?

But it is the manner in which he disposes of it that may not be kosher.

We have a friend, Jolly Rager, who built a log house in the wilderness to get away from civilization.

While Jolly’s cabin is the envy of all his buddies, the dirt road leading to this rustic paradise is a dusty trail that is not fit for man nor Buick during the dry summer months.

Jolly put out a plea for his friends to save used oil in order to spray it on the road to keep down the dust.

“I haven’t given oil to Jolly for years; not since the gas company tarred and chipped his road to make it easier for them to get to their gas wells on Jolly’s property,” Crutch said.

He assures me the oil is being taken to a collection site for the purpose of keeping the sludge out of groundwater supplies.

Crutch said he got serious about going green when he read a bumper sticker on a tanker truck he was following. It read: “Save the Earth, it’s the only planet with chocolate.”

But I wouldn’t characterize Crutch as an Al Gore when it comes to his commitment to going green.