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Spring 1999
In This Issue:
- Web Site Offers Info on Alternative
Cleaners
- “George' Recycles Plastic
Oil Bottles
- If Evaluation Makes You Blue,
This Guide’s for You
- Alameda County Announces New
Hours for Residential HHW Drop-offs
- Increased Hauler Fees Confront
Center Operators
- “Fly Right' — at
Santa Monica
- Mark Your Calendar!
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Web Site Offers Info
on Alternatives to Traditional Household Chemicals
Promoting alternatives to traditional
household chemicals has been made a little easier, thanks to the
Peer Review Project web site (http://www.peerreview.com).
The web site was established to collect and evaluate relevant,
existing information on the human health, environmental effects,
and efficacy of common alternatives to traditional household chemicals.
The project’s goal is to provide
thoroughly researched and reliable information for use in public
education documents on household hazardous materials and alternatives.
The web site’s target audience includes federal, state and
local public agencies, and research institutions as well as manufacturers
of consumer products and the general public.
The project will identify where relevant
health and environmental information gaps on alternative products
exist and to evaluate studies that address them. The web site
format has been selected because it provides a forum for active
dialogue and exchange of information between a wide variety of
participants. The web site allows for:
- Dissemination of information
to a large number of interested parties nationwide, including
government agencies, industry, universities, and public interest
groups.
- The compilation and review
of existing research and scientific information on the health,
safety, and environmental effects of commonly recognized alternatives
to traditional chemical household products.
- The opportunity for interested
parties to provide input in this process.
- The capability for information
to be downloaded by interested users (e.g., for the development
of public information materials by local and state agencies).
A Technical Advisory Committee, with representation
from local, state and federal government, industry, academia,
and public interest groups, is assisting in gathering and reviewing
information. This project is managed by the City of Santa Monica
and the Community Environmental Council, with major funding by
the CIWMB. For more information, check out the web site at
http://www.peerreview.com.
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“George' Recycles Plastic Oil Bottles
FIXCOR Recovery Systems, Inc.’s Project
George is a one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art technology for processing
of plastic motor oil containers and other HDPE #2 plastic used
oil containers. George separates and extracts 100% of the residual
oil that remains in containers — providing clean plastic
for recycling and recovered oil for reprocessing or re-refining.
George is the machine that processes the shredded plastic in a
closed-loop system without the use of water, detergents, or chemicals
that can cause the hazardous discharge of contaminants or additional
waste by-products.
Once the plastic motor oil containers
are free from all residual oil, the flake is transported to FIXCOR
Industries, located in Heath, Ohio, to be processed into post-consumer
resin. The resin is then sent to Pallet Technology, Inc. to be
made into 100% recycled plastic shipping pallets. Besides being
made from 100% post-consumer resin, they are also 100% recyclable.
Once a pallet begins to break down, usually after 75-100 trips,
Pallet Technology will buy it back, mix it with other post-consumer
plastic and manufacture it back into a shipping pallet. The sustainability
of the pallet and design for disassembly closes the loop on recycling
and supports local buy recycled initiatives.
George Jr., FIXCOR’s portable machine,
recently finished operational testing and evaluations at the Richmond
Sanitary MRF in Richmond and USA Waste Management and GreenTeam
USA’s MRF in San Jose. Over 14,000 pounds of plastic and
227 gallons of reusable oil were diverted over a two-month period.
FIXCOR plans to install a Project George machine in both Northern
and Southern California to process shredded plastic bottles. Once
these are in place, the CIWMB will announce how local grantees
can become involved with this method of motor oil bottle collection
and processing.
For more information, please call Lisa
Fitzpatrick at FIXCOR at (740) 928-8999.
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If Evaluation Makes
You Blue, This Guide’s for You
To help grantees evaluate their Used Oil
& HHW projects, the Blue Planet Foundation is developing a
comprehensive guidebook and other resources that help track a
program’s progress.
With funding from a Used Oil Research,
Testing and Demonstration Grant, Sharon Lien and company have
extensively researched evaluation and implementation methods from
social marketing programs around the country.
The Blue Planet Foundation has also worked
closely with Board staff to make sure the guidebook will help
grantees meet Board reporting requirements. They are also developing
a customizable computer program and assessment checklist to assist
with tracking a program’s progress.
Lien will be providing training on the
use of the guidebook at this year’s Statewide Household Hazardous
Waste Conference in Granlibakken.
For more information, call her at (949)
766-0914 or e-mail to slein@prodigy.net.
You can also contact her grant manager, Nora Keenan, at (916)
255-2333 or e-mail to nkeenan@ciwmb.ca.gov.
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Alameda County Announces New Hours for Residential
HHW Drop-offs
Sometimes the biggest problem with a good
HHW program is that people just don’t know about it. Alameda
County Waste Management Authority is helping the county’s
Household Hazardous Waste Program get out the word about a new
free, residential drop-off program through a series of colorful
postcards to residents near the county’s three HHW facilities.
In January, ACWMA used an “Out With
the Old' pitch to residents to make New Year’s resolutions
to clean out all their hazardous wastes lying around the house.
To announce the April-June schedule, the postcards urged residents
to include HHW as part of their “Spring Cleaning.' The postcards
provide information about facility hours and dates for the free
drop-off program, maps with directions to each facility, and a
list of materials that can (and cannot) be dropped off. Targeting
households within five miles of each facility, the agency has
directly notified over 100,000 residents so far. The next step
in the marketing campaign is to enlist businesses to help promote
the HHW program’s services among their customers.
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Increased Hauler Fees Confront Center Operators
With the overall decrease in crude oil
prices over the last several months, prices for used oil fuel
products have also dropped. As a result, used oil processing facilities
have increased the amount charged to haulers. And, in response,
haulers have increased their rates, passing on the increase —
ranging from 5 to 10 cents per gallon, to generators including
collection centers. The CIWMB has received many calls from center
operators about this issues and what, if anything, the Board can
do. The 16-cents-per-gallon incentive that the Board pays out
to certified centers is meant as just that, an incentive to participate
in the program.
The 16 cents rarely covers the total cost
of used oil collection for a center, but it does defray enough
of the cost to influence many center operators to participate.
Because of the increased cost faced by centers, some may stop
taking used oil from the public. One short term solution is for
local jurisdictions to help defray the increased costs with block
grant funds. Grantees should be willing to contact their most
valued centers (e.g., the ones collecting the most public oil)
and decide what support can be provided to maintain an adequate
level of public service. The Board realizes that this expenditure
may come at the cost of other local efforts, such as outreach
and public education; however, without the backbone of valued
public collection locations, promotion may lead to public frustration
and result in a reluctance to ever recycle again.
Board staff will continue to track this
market condition and may recommend to increase the incentive value;
however, this would not be for a quick fix but more of a long
term solution. Please contact your Board grant manager if you
need additional information or want to discuss ways to support
collection centers in your area.
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“Fly Right' —
at Santa Monica
Funded through grants from the CIWMB and
the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, the City of Santa Monica,
and the Santa Monica Airport are implementing the “Fly Right'
project. This project provides aviation aircraft tenants a place
to drop off their waste oil and oil filters. Four used oil collection
centers have been established at the airport. Each site includes:
- 400-gallon above-ground waste oil tank.
- 55-gallon used oil filter
collection container.
- On-site spill containment kits.
- Site user signage.
- Lighting.
A series of educational materials were
developed to assist with outreach to pilots and aircraft owners
at the Santa Monica Airport. These materials included a program
brochure (with a tear-off section for easy referral), poster,
billing inserts, point-of-sale materials (tear-off pads), and
promotional items (balsa wood airplanes). Educational presentations
are also scheduled with local pilot groups, pilot ground school
classes, flight instructor seminars, and other interested groups.
Outreach will also be conducted to on-airport businesses.
In addition to instructing pilots and
aircraft owners on the proper use of the collection sites, materials
and presentations cover safe and proper handling techniques for
hazardous aircraft fluids, such as oil, fuel, and solvents.
For more information on this targeted
approach to oil recycling and hazardous materials, call James
Conway, City of Santa Monica, at (310) 458-8916.
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Mark Your Calendar!
Is Your Program Doing Anything New and Exciting?
Are you planning a grand opening, kickoff, or other kind of press
event for your Used Oil/HHW program? If so, please let your CIWMB
Grant Manager know. If it’s important to you, it’s important
to us. We would like to promote these activities internally, and
through the Oil/HHW Networker.
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