OIL INDUSTRY COLLABORATES TO
EASE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
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KAESER HP_Food Tech NZ_Jun 20_V2.indd 1 5/05/2020 9:02:11 AM
FTR523
INNOVATION
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
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 heavyduty
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.”
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).
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 ‘too-hard
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 industry-wide
stewardship scheme will encourage
more companies to get involved and
make the whole process a lot more
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