Restoring and servicing British sports cars makes for a fun and wholesome business. Car restoration inherently promotes reducing, re-using and recycling and we are trying to define and close an even tighter environmental loop.
We like what we're doing and feel as though we're contributing to saving an endangered species. Still, fixing and driving any car uses up non-renewable resources and creates unsavory waste products. If humans were meant to drive, cars would be made of sand and would run on water.
This guide describes Motorhead's penance for its environmental sins and we hope it might encourage you to think about practices in your own shop.
Cans are collected in a plastic bin and taken to a local site. These cans are then re-made into a variety of aluminum products.
We buy bulk recycled antifreeze from C&R Industries. Waste antifreeze from our shop and our customers is then collected for periodic pickup and recycling.
We save and re-use shopping bags for our customers' parts.
Used car batteries from our shop and our customers are collected by our supplier, Interstate Battery. They recycle the lead, other metals and the plastic cases. Small used batteries are tested, collected and taken to a local site so their innards can be recovered and recycled.
We re-use supplier boxes and scavenge boxes from neighboring businesses to send out our mail-order parts.
We use Safety Kleen's brake washer to help contain the solvent used to clean brake parts. The solvent is collected and recycled.
We use Safety Kleen's less harmful version of solvent for carburetors which is contained, collected and recycled.
Worst examples of worn-out parts are used as teaching aids for symptom diagnosis.
Exhaust gases are collected from the shop and vented to the outside air. This year we are looking into devices to clean our shop air.
This is a tricky one. All car shops have waste gasoline but have no simple, fair way to dispose of it. We tracked down a Virginia company that will pick up and dispose of gasoline by using it to make roads and as fuel in industrial plants. the cost can be $4 per gallon for small quantities so it will be helpful to set up regular pickups covering many businesses to bring this cost down.
Bottles are collected in a plastic bin and taken to a local site. This glass is then re-made into new glass products.
Ferrous metal from our shop and our customers is collected in our recycling fence and transported to a scrap yard which then sells it to be recycled.
We try to limit our junk mail output by sending postcards instead of letters. We are working to print addresses directly on postcards to reduce labels. We reduce full page ads to half-page and get 4 ads on a single flyer.
Stuff we put in our dumpster includes: paper cardboard, plastic, metal cans, small old parts, vinyl, and cloth. We are working to change this.
Engine, gearbox and differential oil is collected from our shop and our customers in 55 gallon drums and periodically removed by Eastern Oil. The oil is then refined for use as industrial fuels.
Oil filters from our shop and our customers are allowed to drip into the waste oil drums and then are collected in a barrel and picked up by Metalpro which recycles them.
Although we don't buy foam pellets or peanuts we re-use what our suppliers have sent us in mail-order packages.
We recycle white printer paper by collecting it in a box and taking it to a local site. We recycle newsprint as packing material for boxes.
We use Safety Kleen's less harmful version of their grease solvent to clean parts during car repair. The solvent is contained, collected and recycled.
Many of the larger parts units collected from our shop and customers such as carburetors, generators, alternators, starters, engines, gearboxes, steering and suspension parts are rebuilt re-using much of the original unit.
These rags and towels, collected from our shop and customers, are used to clean oil, grease, gas, antifreeze and solvents during the course of car repair. Our rag and uniform company, RUS, thoughtfully cleans them for our re-use.
Nearly all parts salvaged from British cars which we dismantle are collected in our attic and used again in cars throughout the world.
Tires which are useable are given to a local used tire company for continued use, in exchange for dismounting them from used wheels. Non-drivable tires from our shop and our customers are collected and we pay to have them recycled by this company.
We collect wire hangers for re-use by our uniform rental company. Hangers also can be used as an effective brazing rod.
In various projects, we re-use wood down to its smallest size and even then try to burn it in home wood-stoves.
Bring us your tires, your doors, your muddled dashes.
Bring these items to Motorhead for proper disposal and recycling:
Antifreeze
Batteries
Metal
Oil
Oil Filters
Rebuilt Parts
Shop Rags
Tires
We pay or arrange to have these items recycled properly to help limit landfill use and to reduce air and water pollution. We charge and allocate $6 from each service repair invoice to our recycling program.