Recycling Rescues Shops From Waste

July 19, 2000 10:54 AM, EDT

Trucking companies have changed the way they handle waste products generated by their shops, not only giving new life to worn-out materials but also being good citizens, conscious of the environment and careful of its protection.

	Safety Kleen
	Hazardous waste is packed into a drum and loaded aboard a truck for disposal.

In the process they avoid running afoul of today’s environmental regulations — and they may conserve a few dollars, too, for there is money in recycling what truck shops used to throw away.

Not so long ago, really, cleaning out the shop meant simply stacking worn-out tires in the back, burning trash and old rags, and dumping used oil and other fluids someplace conveniently out of the way — maybe even pouring them down the drain. Oil from a truck’s engine crankcase may have been used to dampen the dust on unpaved roads or kill weeds along the fence line. It was all rather casual.

But for the most part, those bad old days are over, thanks on one hand to awareness of just how damaging and wasteful such practices were, and on the other hand to strict controls imposed by law and enforced by the federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency. Thus, careless disposal of shop waste not only presents a potential cost or loss of revenue, it can also raise the company’s liability profile.

For the full story, see the July 17 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.