At AVISTA OIL, we have taken a close look at the new document ‘Lubricants & Greases: End of Life – Sustainable Best Practices’ (2024) from ATIEL and UEIL. Many of the best practices described in it reflect our own actions. Over the coming weeks, we will be presenting the chapters of the document and showing how we at AVISTA OIL are successfully putting these topics into practice.
What is the document about?
The white paper shows how the lubricant industry can contribute to the circular economy – especially after the use of lubricants.
Topics covered include:
- Environmental and health risks of improper disposal
- New legal framework conditions
- Technological approaches to the regeneration and reuse of waste oil
Challenges:
Lubricants lose their protective effect due to viscosity degradation, additive ageing and contamination. Improperly disposed of waste oil can cause enormous damage – one litre of waste oil can contaminate up to one million litres of water.
The need for closed cycles:
The collection, analysis, processing and reuse of waste oil to produce base oils should become standard practice – to protect people, the environment and resources.
How does AVISTA OIL deal with this?
For us, waste oil is not waste, but a raw material. We have been committed to the circular economy for decades. Our model is based on material recycling:
- Collection: our own take-back system with a certified specialist company
- Analysis & pre-sorting for quality assurance
- Regeneration in modern refineries with patented technology
- New production: re-refined base oils, sustainable lubricants, recycled fuels & blending components
- Distribution: to customers in industry, automotive, agriculture, construction and forestry
Advantages:
- Resource conservation: replaces primary refining
- Emission reduction: ifeu 2022 shows significantly lower CO₂ emissions
- Health protection: minimised risk through professional collection & processing
- Legal certainty: compliance with national & EU regulations (including AbfRRL 2008/98/EC)
Conclusion
What the ATIEL/UEIL document describes as best practice has long been a reality at AVISTA OIL. As a pioneer in waste oil processing, we live and breathe the circular economy every day. Our mission: to transform used materials into valuable resources.
Click here for the document.
Next post: Waste hierarchy & the 10R framework – how we create true circularity at AVISTA OIL.