Recycling Compressed Gas Cylinders

Got old propane, oxygen, acetylene, butane, helium or other used compressed gas cylinders lying around? Need to dispose of them? It’s illegal to throw them into the trash and dangerous to keep them lying around. Here’s what you must do before we can accept your used compressed gas cylinders:

For starters, all the gas must be evacuated from the cylinders and the valves removed or a visible hole drilled, bored or otherwise cut so that we can see that your cylinder is in-fact empty. This is true for every kind of compressed gas cylinder no matter what it is made of or what it may or may not contain. The only current exception to this rule is Coleman Green Key Tool equipped cylinders.

It also makes no difference as to what your compressed gas cylinder once held as even non flammable gas cylinders can explode when cut, cracked, crushed or broken. All cylinders are considered loaded unless we can clearly see inside of them— no exceptions as we prefer not blowing ourselves up.

We can buy your properly evacuated compressed gas cylinders but if you are unable to safely evacuate your cylinders—and most people can’t do the job safely—then we recommend you transport them to the City of Greensboro’s Hazardous Waste Collection site.

And please be very careful.