Peerless Road Recycling Centre has won a ‘Top Collector Award’ from the BC Used Oil Management Association (BCUOMA) for the centre’s work in recycling used motor oil and anti-freeze.
Peerless was ranked at number 23 in the top 30 collectors. There are roughly 300 public access collection centres across the province.
David Lawes, CEO of BCUOMA, said that Peerless is an exemplary facility and was awarded because of the large volume of used motor oil and anti-freeze it collects. Lawes said that folks who change their own oil or have hobby vehicles like ATVs have been great participants in the oil recycling program.
“It’s the user type and the facility that combined make Peerless so high on the list,” he said. “Peerless nice, it’s well run, and I’m happy that we put infrastructure into there.”
Most often, used motor oils are recycled and refined into new motor oil. Lawes said about three quarters of recylced motor oil finds its way back into vehicles. The other quarter is recycled into other products.
“That’s only because the contaminants are a little too high and it can’t be re-refined into motor oil.”
A bulk of the recycled anti-freeze is also refined to be put back into motor vehicles.
BCUOMA has grant funding that it provides to recycling centres to build oil and anti-freeze recycling infrastructure. They provide modified seacans with oil collection tanks for recycling centres to collect the products and ship them back to BCUOMA.
Each year approximately 50 million litres of oil, and 3 million litres of antifreeze are collected and responsibly managed through BCUOMA’s network of public Return Collection Facilities and generators across the province.