OIL INDUSTRY
COLLABORATES
TO EASE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Approximately 4.5 million lubricant containers end up in New Zealand
landfills every year. Now oil companies want to do something about it.
Realising the power they had to alter this
alarming statistic, major oil companies in
New Zealand united to form The Waste
Lubricant Container Working Group and solve an
industry wide problem.
The group had one goal - to set up a product
stewardship scheme that would see lubricant
containers recycled and reduce their contribution
to landfills.
Two years on, that goal is now getting closer to a
reality and the scheme is expected to be up and
running in 12 months’ time.
Oil Intel technical expert Bob Foothead says the
scheme is about the industry recognising the
impact it has on the environment and the social
responsibility it has to deal with it.
“We have to be greener than green,” says
Foothead. “The oil industry itself does not have
a reputation for being environmentally friendly,
so we need to utilise all we can to ensure we
are acting in the very best interests of the
environment.”
In the past, lubricant packaging has been
notoriously difficult to recycle, due to the oily
residue left inside even when empty.
This detracts from its value as a recycled material
and has meant many have ended up in the ‘toohard
basket’ also known as the landfill.
The group is working to change lubricant
containers from being a wasteful problem, to a
valuable circular commodity.
As a company, Oil Intel has already had a
recycling system in place for its own containers
for a year now, but Foothead says the industrywide
stewardship scheme will encourage more
companies to get involved and make the whole
process a lot more efficient.
Under Oil Intel’s current scheme, around 70% of
the recycled plastic stays in New Zealand to begin
new lives as bollards or other heavy-duty items.
One advantage oil companies have when it comes
to recycling, is that the plastic is of very high
quality, says Foothead.
“The oil has to be in a very rigid plastic container,
it can’t spill or crack. The biggest problem with
oil is that it has to be chemically cleaned. That
does make it a little more difficult for companies
to recycle. But we have to do it because we can’t
afford to continue with the issue we have got
now.”
The Lubricant Container Stewardship Scheme
will work similarly to the successful agrichemical
container and Resene paint tin scheme, which
diverts difficult-to-recycle containers from the
landfill to be cleaned and reprocessed.
The proposed system will see containers returned
to designated locations across the country where
they will be collected and taken to the appropriate
place to be chipped, solvent cleaned and recycled
into other products.
However, even with the systems in place,
Foothead emphasises that for the system to work,
the consumer still has an important role to play.
“ We the industry acknowledge we have an issue
that we need to deal with and we are working very
hard to get a resolution to that.
“We can only do so much. We can set things up,
but once we’ve sold the product we rely on people
to actually bring those empty containers back. We
can go part of the way but there are several links in
the chain and an important link is the community
returning these empty containers.”
Foothead says there has been fantastic
cooperation by all involved, working to drive the
project to where they are now.
“It’s always difficult when you’ve got competitors
in the market, but it’s gone fantastically well
from our first meeting. Everyone has worked
collaboratively to put us in this position, which is
good not only for the industry but certainly good
for New Zealand’s environment.”
The working group is made up of of Allied
Petroleum Ltd (Mobil), Castrol NZ Ltd, Farmlands
Co-Operative Society Ltd (Gulf Oil), TransDiesel
Ltd (ENI Lubricants), Z Energy and Oil Intel Ltd
(Total Lubricants).
32 June 2020
E N E R G Y