Did you know that every litre of used oil can make a difference? One litre of used oil could contaminate one million litres of fresh water.
In 1988, The Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment identified used oil as Canada’s largest single source of hazardous material - if not effectively managed. This led to the formation of the Western Canadian Used Oil/Container/Filter Industry Task Force who initiated a province-by-province program to harmonize the collection of used materials and initiated a shift from government responsibility to producers and sellers of lubricating products taking more ownership. The mandated Environmental Fee attached to every oil change in our country helps fund the effective management of oil and other by-products of the oil industry.
We at Super Lube are proud to be part of this ongoing effort to preserve our environment for the generations to come. Here are some of the ways we have taken a leading approach in our industry.
As a lube shop, we deal with your oil all day long. When you bring your vehicle to Super Lube, you can be assured that 100% of your used oil and oil products are captured. Through our partnership with Recycle West, a leader in the environmental industry for over 40 years, captured oil at our locations is picked up regularly and used for energy recovery – a process where used oil is filtered to remove water and contaminants and then burned to make heat or to power industrial operations. Recycle West also helps us with used oil filters, which are crushed to remove residual oils until the scrap metal is clean enough to send to local metal recyclers. Recovered oil filters become steel reborn for our Manitoba roadways! The same goes for the empty plastic containers, which are collected, washed, shredded, and recycled into new plastic products.
We also take a proactive approach to recycling by reducing the volume of small plastic containers we use, turning instead to an innovative product called Petro Packs. Petro Packs are large cardboard boxes with a plastic high-volume reservoir inside holding oil. New bags of oil are swapped in as needed, with the cardboard holder eventually recycled and replaced.
We’ve talked oil and plastic…but how about Rubber?
We sell a lot of new tires at Super Lube. The reality is that for every new tire sold, an old one gets…retired? We’ll patch them for free, but eventually you will need to roll with new tires (pun intended). Used tires take up a ton of space in our landfills and pose a risk to the environment and human health. Through collaboration with Tire Stewardship Manitoba we are part of a program that helps Manitoba recycle and reuse 13,000,000 kilograms of rubber per year. That number accounts for 100% of the roughly 1.8 million scrap tires available to be recycled in our province each year. Our scrapped tires are recycled and repurposed for use as flooring products, artificial turf, playground surfaces, blast mats and even rubberized asphalt for our roads – as well as numerous geo-technical projects and other forms of energy recovery.
Super Lube’s Stewardship Program has kept millions of litres of used oil out of our environment so you can feel good about changing your oil and know we are all doing our part to make the road ahead a little better. Stewardship is the management of someone else’s assets or interests as though they were your own. The truth is that this world is only ours for a short time. What we do now directly affects the road ahead. Our choices shape the planet our children will inherit and the quality of the lives they will live.
We are committed to continue to do all we can on our end, and we'd love for you to join us in our efforts to preserve the environment! Here's a parting thought from Jim Brousseau, our Founder and CEO:
In the simplest of terms, car care is a choice. Choose a long life for your car. When you choose to love and take care of your car, you are also choosing to take care of Canada. The more we feel connected to our vehicles, and our country, the more inspired and invested we become in stewarding it for the next generation. If we can make your car care easy and affordable, just maybe we can help keep your car out of the landfill and on the road for another 10 years. Saving you money and saving the environment. Remember, you CAN fix it before it’s broken - with regular maintenance. Love what you drive, and let us help you drive it for miles and miles.