As a child I observed uncle’s work as a mechanic for many years, he used to pour used motor oil in the swamp as a way of controlling mosquitoes but neglecting the fact that fish and other aquatic plants were killed too! He quite often assigned me a task of burning used motor oil as a way of getting rid of it. This is the work I hated most because used motor oil burns with acrid smoke which choked and suffocated me. This made me start looking for safer means of disposal for used motor but by then I didnt have enough knowledge and capacity to handle the matter. Fast forward many years I joined college and graduated as a chemist so as to fulfil my desire to save our environment as well as create jobs.
Me (Geoffrey-chemist) and Mike – an accountant and Frank – a mechanical engineer are the three directors of Brent Technologies a company re-refining (recycling) used motor oil.
It may be surprising to note that, under normal circumstances, lubricating oil cannot easily be destroyed; it only gets dirty and easily contaminated by other solvents. This property makes used lubricating oil a potential pollutant that must not be allowed to get into the environment due to its adverse and detrimental effects. The Only safe option is to collect it and re-refine it so that to restore its original physical-chemical properties in order to be re-used or blend it into other highly demanded products.
Despite the fact that the majority of the people know the dangers resulting in poor handling of used lubricating oils, little effort has been put in manage it. This is mainly due to: high initial investment cost to set up refineries, lack of enough knowledge to operate refineries among other reasons.
Your success factors
At Brent Technologies, we do not simply recycle but, we RE-REFINE used lubricating oils into fresh motor oil, diesel fuel and shoe cream using an inexpensive and environmentally friendly technology developed by us.
We collect used motor and pay some money to people who keep it for us, process it into base oil which we further blend with additives to make fresh motor oil or make diesel fuel. The waste which comes from our refinery is also processed into shoe cream and asphalt for highway road construction. We therefore make money through selling Lube oil, diesel fuel, shoe cream and asphalt.
We have so far, since inception, acquired a number of process equipment including Oil filter equipment, waste oil purification equipment, and oil testing equipment.
A few words about your competitors
In Uganda we have a number of competitors of which the majority import lubricants while only two competitors recycle used oils. We are unique in the sense that we make use of all the wastes which would end up in landfills thereby leaving the environment clean which is not the case with our competitors who dispose off valuable resources (wastes) and miss earning money and also damage the environment.
To learn more about you (website, twitter, video presentation …)
I am wondering is it still worth trying to do the right thing when it seems that most of the material that should be recycled is just going to save the environment.
please i want to know more about this technology of yours and the process of refining?