California Approves Motor Oil Container Recycling Program

ITec Environmental Systems (ITec) of Oakdale, Calif., a division of Beechport Capital, received approval from the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) for a motor oil container recycling program. The CIWMB also considers ITec granulators as an eligible expense for the block grant funding program for cities and counties.

"Eliminating the dumping of plastics contaminated with motor oil into their local landfills has been the goal of nearly every city and county government in California. The approval by the CIWMB for this new expense offers cities and counties the opportunity to purchase granulators and participate in ITec's Plastics Collection Program," Gary De Laurentiis, ITec's president and CEO, says.

In 2000, ITec contacted the CIWMB about incorporating used motor oil containers and other plastic containers used in the transportation of used motor oil into its existing used motor oil recycling program. "Since we had developed a process to recycle the containers, the key to the success of the program was to overcome several barriers. Developing a statewide approach to collecting the recyclable materials, safely transporting them to a central facility to recycle the materials while getting the cooperation from several government agencies were finally accomplished," De Laurentiis says.

"Through our research and development, we designed a special compact granulator which grinds the oil contaminated plastic containers directly into a 55-gallon drum enabling safe, easy and economical transportation of these containers to a processing facility," he says.

The CIWMB recently published its support of a motor oil container-recycling program in a bulletin to grant managers: "The Used Oil Recycling Program supports the recycling of used motor oil containers and residual oil. Recently, the Used Oil Recycling Program has listed recycling of plastic containers that once held used oil, as an 'eligible expense' with Used Oil Block Grant Funds. And in the future, Used Oil Opportunity and Non-Profit Used Grants will list this as an 'eligible project' that grantees can submit in their grant applications."