Service centers clean up

Do you know where your oil goes when you take your coach in for a filter change? At MCI Service Centers, you can be assured that it's not going to a landfill — or worse, down the drain.

In fact, MCI has signed an agreement with Safety Kleen to recycle both its oil and the metal from its oil filters. Key will be the acquisition of special oil-filter crushers that extract nearly all the oil from the filters and then compact the filters themselves. "On a car, an oil filter is maybe six or eight inches tall. On a coach, it's about as big as a paint can," says Don Phillips, MCI's U.S. health, safety and environment manager. "The crusher reduces it to three or six inches tall, which will greatly reduce the waste that goes out of our shops."

Phillips says that the cost of the crushers will be offset by what MCI saves in waste-hauling fees and what it collects from metal recyclers. "It's the right thing to do for the environment," says Phillips.

MCI Service Centers recycle antifreeze as well, and are in the process of switching from solvent-based cleaners to aqueous ones. Altogether, Phillips estimates, the service centers will eventually attain a waste-reduction rate of about 90 percent.

Other ways to go green
MCI's nine service centers pay attention to the environment in other ways as well. All have spill containment plans to reduce the chances that oil and other fluids don't inadvertently enter sewers, groundwater or the land. MCI facilities have installed triple traps within the drain, and in those shops that maintain paint facilities, MCI sees to it that there is no release of paint emissions into the air. "MCI has chosen to adhere to the highest EPA standard," says Phillips, explaining that EPA permits mandating strict standards cost less than permits that require less rigor. "Again, it's the right thing to do."

"MCI has gone to a lot of effort to control things that affect the environment,"says Phillips. But that's not to say we're not going to do a lot more."

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