Reprinted with permission of Tire Business. Copyright Crain Communications
Inc. 2008 ®
Eco’s
in their name, part of their game
Firm
pays more than just lip service to ‘green’ values
By Vera Linsalata Tire Business staff VANCOUVER, Wash.
( for full color PDF version of this article, click
HERE )
—When Don Orange
started Main Street Tire & Automotive Inc. in Vancouver five years ago,
it took only two years before he decided a business name change was
in order to reflect his “green” values. Hence in 2005, Main Street Tire
began doing business as Eco Auto & Tire, a dealership committed to ecologically
friendly practices as well as helping its customers save money. During
the second month of Eco Auto’s debut, the dealership experienced its
best sales month up to that point.
“We’re good to the Earth and good to the budget,” Mr. Orange told Tire
Business.
Eco Auto always has operated as “environmentally sound” since its opening
in 2003, Mr. Orange said. One of the dealership’s first environmental
initiatives was switching to using zinc wheel weights from lead weights
after manager Penny Baldwin read reports in Tire Business about zinc
alternatives to lead weights. She said she contacted the Ecology Center,
a nonprofit group in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Eco Auto ordered zinc weights
from this organization until it stopped offering the product. Rather
than go back to using lead weights, Eco Auto looked at alternatives
and discovered it could make its own tape-on steel wheel weights for
much less than buying lead or zinc weights. The dealership hired a local
steel fabricator to supply the steel pieces, and Mr. Orange said he
spends an hour per month assembling them, an option that’s been both
green and cost-effective. The weights are small round plugs that weigh
a quarter or a half ounce, Ms. Baldwin said. “Most of the things that
we do that address environmental issues, we could do a lot more and
do them better, it’s just as we find things we do them,” Mr. Orange
said. “But most of them are relatively inexpensive. We do things that
most conscientious businesses do, such as be careful about our waste
stream, from getting every tire recycled to making sure that the lead
that we do take off of wheels gets recycled properly.”
Recycling many of the things used in the shop is a priority for Eco
Auto, including motor oil, paper, pop cans, coolants, cardboard and
parts, according to Ms. Baldwin. Whatever lead wheel weights the dealership
takes off of vehicles also are recycled. Rather than pay a hauler to
take its waste tires to a landfill, Ms. Baldwin said Eco Auto transports
its tires directly to a recycler that converts the scrap into cattle
mats. “That way we know they’re going where they’re supposed to go,”
she said. The dealership also has switched to water-based Oil Eater
cleaning products from petroleum-based cleaning solvents and found that
its techs liked Oil Eater better because it isn’t flammable or “hard
on their hands,” Mr. Orange said. The soaring price of oil has made
petroleum-based solvents more expensive as well.
“Our effort to be environmentally friendly has been cost neutral,” he
said. “If we pay a little less for wheel weights, we pay a little more
labor to make them.” Paying 10 percent more for tires has more of an
impact on the dealership’s bottom line than buying “green” cleaning
products that cost 10 percent more than petroleum-based cleaning solvents,
Mr. Orange added.
One initiative that is costing Eco Auto is buying wind-driven electrical
power, Mr. Orange said. In the area near him is a windmill farm that
operates hundreds of windmills, and he Eco Auto & Tire photo along with
some other business owners pay their utility 2 or 3 cents extra per
kilowatt hour to be supplied with wind-generated power. “It helps to
drive the wind business,” he said. “It costs millions to put up windmills,
and it gives the electrical producers from the windfarms a market for
their electricity.” When asked if wind is a reliable power source, Mr.
Orange said the windmills are being constructed in the windiest areas
in Washington and Oregon, including the Columbia River, which is known
as the “wind tunnel” for windsurfers. “This is completely different
than putting up a windmill,” he said. “We are investing in the wind
industry here and helping drive the wind industry. And so, when they
put up a thousand of these windmills, they put them up in the windiest
parts of Oregon and Washington. The wind is always blowing somewhere.”
Eco Auto offers all major tire brands and complete auto repair service.
It employs four—including one temporary worker. Mr. Orange declined
to disclose annual sales other than to say “they’re below your average.”
from The Oregonian
METRO
Monday February 26, 2007
Vancouver
Zinc tire balance
weights
help get the lead out
Don
Orange began using lead-free wheel weights at his tire and
repair store three years ago, convinced it was the right thing to do.
Now, the state Department of Ecology agrees.
The department is shepherding House Bill 2143,
which would require a three-year phase-in of lead-free alternatives,
beginning with state-owned vehicles in January.
Orange, owner of Eco Auto & Tire at 3800 Main St.
for the past four years, said he started using zinc weights
after reading about their availability in a tire industry magazine.
His shop's practices caught the attention of the
House Select Committee on Environmental Health.
Orange testified before the panel last Thursday in favor of HB2143.
The Northwest Tire Dealers Association believes more study is needed
before a law is enacted, executive director Dick Nordnes said.
However, Nordnes said the committee will likely approve the bill and
send it to the Rules Committee, the predecessor to a possible House
vote.
Orange, whose shop pays for 100 percent renewable power
through Clark Public Utilities and recycles all shop materials,
would like to testify again. Thursday was his first time.
"I enjoyed it," he said.
First
tire dealer on West Coast to offer
environmentally friendly wheel balancing
Contact: Don Orange,
Main Street Tire & Auto,
3800 Main St., Vancouver, WA, 360-690-8277
Jeff Gearhart, Campaign Director, Ecology Center,
Michigan, 734-663-2400 x117
(April 19, 2005)
Main Street Tire & Auto of Vancouver, Washington, just became a little
greener. Always on the lookout for ways to make their products and services
more environmentally friendly, Main Street Tire has announced that they
have started to phase-out the use of lead weights for wheel balancing
at their retail tire store.
Main Street Tire
has joined forces with the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Ecology Center to
offer lead-free wheel balancing on both new tire purchases and repairs
at no additional cost to the public.
The nonprofit Ecology
Center's "Lead-Free Wheels" program, partially funded with a grant from
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, offers lead-free wheel weights
at a discount to a growing number of private tire retailers and public
fleet operators nationwide. In the Midwest, the University of Michigan;
the Cities of Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Madison Heights and Romulus in
Michigan; the State of Minnesota; and a number of independent auto repair
shops have phased-out lead wheel weight use.
"We commend the
leadership and responsibility of tire dealers like Main Street Tire,"
said Jeff Gearhart, Campaign Director of the Ecology Center. "Main Street
Tire is the first tire retailer on the West Coast to begin phasing out
the use of lead wheel weights. We expect many other tire retailers,
cities, and states will follow their lead."
The replacement
wheel weights - made from zinc - are being supplied to program participants
by the Ecology Center at the same cost as the lead weights currently
used. Traditionally, one to two lead weights weighing 2-3 ounces each
have been attached to each tire rim to balance the wheel for a smoother
ride and longer tread wear.
Lead-free wheel
weights are being introduced to help protect consumers and the environment
from toxic lead exposure. Recent studies have documented that on average
13% of wheel weights fall off of vehicles during driving. One study
estimates that 3.3 million pounds of lead per year is deposited on urban
roads in the United States.
Lead is a well-known,
highly toxic substance, and is especially dangerous to children even
in very small amounts. Lead wheel weights are actually very soft and
after they fall off a vehicle they are rapidly abraded by traffic into
smaller pieces, scattered into the wind as dust, washed into storm sewers
and waterways, and picked up by shoes, animal paws, and bicycle tires.
The use of lead
free wheel weights by Main Street Tire will amount to a reduction of
the use of 145 pounds of lead each year, and prevent the release of
nearly 20 pounds of lead into the environment in each year.
"The transition
to lead-free wheel balancing has been very easy," said Main Street Tire
& Auto owner Don Orange. "We're finding that the new weights work as
good or better then the lead weights we previously used. We hope the
automakers will move to install lead-free weights on all new vehicles."
"This is a great
example of easy, cost-effective action that can have great environmental
benefits," said Gearhart.
The lead-free weights
for the program meet all Original Equipment Manufacturer specifications
and are being purchased from the top wheel weight manufacturers, including
Perfect Equipment Corporation (Tennessee), and Plombco (Montreal).
"Lead-Free Wheels"
program organizers are also calling on all auto manufacturers and tire
retailers to commit to phasing out the use of lead wheel weights in
the U.S. by July 2006.
The Ecology Center
is a regional environmental organization working to reduce the environmental
impact of vehicles. For more information on the Ecology Center and the
issue of lead-free wheel weights, visit http://www.leadfreewheels.org.
Main Street Tire
& Auto, located at 3800 Main Street, Vancouver, Washington, is a full
maintenance auto repair facility that also sells new tires.
 |
Motor
Oil, Re-Refined
Changing your oil is good for your car.
Using re-refined oil is good for the earth.
Chrysler, General Motors, Volvo, and Mercedes-Benz all endorse the
use of re-refined motor oil certified by the American Petroleum
Institute (API). |
Clark County, the Vancouver
School District, Northwest Natural Gas, C-Tran, and Waste Management all
use re-refined motor oil in their vehicles. Using re-refined motor oil
conserves oil resources and reduces our dependency on foreign oil. Re-refined
oil is available in SAE 10W-30 weight only.
Have your vehicle’s oil changed with re-refined motor oil or purchase
re-refined motor oil at these locations.
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