The number one thing, and I think that it was what makes
this industry very unique from my perspective is that
competitors work together in this space.
I've heard the word use coopetition.
I've heard, you know, all sorts of things.
I'll be on the phone with the member and they're like, oh, you
know, my direct competitor's truck is in our yard right now.
But if a company wants to go in and really be a turnkey
provider, and again, if we're handling all types of industrial
liquids, the likelihood that I'm actually treating all those
liquids is probably fairly low. OK.
But if I I now have access to what we're calling Infinite
24/7, where they can come and meet these people and have
dinner with them, develop a relationship.
Welcome to the Environmental Transformation Podcast where we
bring you interviews with industry leaders, climate
champions, sustainability practitioners, EHS, and hazmat
professionals making an impact in their businesses today.
Each leader solving complex challenges and delivering
solutions within their areas of expertise.
I'm your host, Sean Grady, and thanks for joining us today.
Before we jump in, make sure to follow us on your devices and
visit my website at www.seankgrady.com and sign up
for our newsletter and e-mail announcements.
Now let's get started. Welcome to the Environmental
Transformation podcast. I'm your host, Sean Grady, and
today's guest is Scott Parker. Scott.
He serves as the executive director of Infinite, the
industrial liquid Recycling Association.
He's been with them since 2002. The association has over 340
member companies. Infinite connects, educates and
protects the industrial liquid recycling industry and adjacent
services. Parker has managed various
environmental trade associations for over 30 years, and he has
served on the board of directors of the Buy Recycle Business
Alliance Co, chairman of the American Recycles Day and also
has been a judge of the White House's greeting or greening the
government contest. And so Parker has been, he's
earned his bachelor's degree of business administration and from
James Madison University. And you know, James Madison,
that sounds familiar, is Curt Cignetti.
Did he go there? Was he coaching there?
Yes, and he he's been upgraded a couple pay grades since.
Yeah, we're listen, I wish Indiana all the luck.
I had family that went to Indiana, but it's a little bit
like, you know, your ex-girlfriend.
I hope she's doing well, but I'm not going to come to the wedding
if she gets married. So Kurt Cignetti is a great
coach. So he's fantastic.
Now we're happy to have him here in Indiana.
And so I just saw that almost like just hit me there.
I was like, you know, we're we're doing pretty good right
now. So we're riding high.
We're pretty high over here, so. It's pretty great, Sean.
With that, I'm going to have to cancel the podcast now that I
know you guys stole our coach. Sorry about that, you know, but
welcome to the show, Scott. I mean, this has been great.
You know, you and I met, well, actually it's been a little over
a year ago, but that we've seen each other twice recently and at
the EI Digest gathering in, in San Diego where I learned more
about Nora and then now Infident, you guys rebranded
this past year. And, and I, I wasn't aware at
the time that there was an association that was an advocacy
association for all the and liquid industrial waste service
providers in the industry, which is really great what you do.
So, you know, let's, let's start there.
Let's give us a little maybe a big picture overview, Scott of,
you know what, what you guys are doing and what inspired you to,
you know, transition from Nora to infinite.
And how does that reflect on the evolving goals of the
association? Well, well, First off, Sean,
thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
It's a great program you put on here.
Yeah, I mean, I think actually I'm going to just kind of do a
quick history recap. But you know, your point
exactly, which is I wasn't aware that an organization like this
existed was really one of the main reasons why we had to
rebrand, right. If you're if you're in this
space, if you're putting on a podcast, if you know everything
about everything and you don't know about us, that's a problem
for us. You know, if we go back and we
look at just quickly, you know, EPA was founded in 1970.
Then 1980, the Used Oil Recycling Act was signed by
Congress advocating for a recycling of used oil.
That was the beginning. That was the genesis of the
organization. OK.
By 1984, the EPA was supposed to promulgated rules regarding used
oil recycling. And they had not they, they were
dragging their feet. And what happened was there were
some companies or some individuals that were advocating
for used oil to be designated as a hazardous waste.
Whereas 4 companies got together in 1984, just four got together
and said you know what, used oil can be beneficially reused.
It can be used as a as a fuel or recycled fuel.
It can be re refined into new lubricants.
Well that obviously you know that there that was the
beginning. So these four companies got
together, they started what was then called the National Oil
Recyclers Association. That was the proper name at that
time. And the interesting thing, Sean,
was they were successful, OK. And what that led to the used
oil management standards that were done and and our
organization was part of it. Meanwhile, the organization was
growing. Then we started realizing, oh,
our members are also handling wastewater.
So in the 90s, we also were responsible for working with EPA
on developing the centralized water treatment, wastewater
treatment standards to make sure that they were protecting the
environment and were achievable. OK, so, so by the time we get to
2000 again, I'm, I'm fast forwarding here to get you
through this. But we, then we, we merged with
a group that was involved with antifreeze and parts cleaning
and all these things that were adjacent services.
They, the organization changed their name in 2000 to just Nora.
So they, they because they wanted to, brought on the base.
That was fine. And that that lasted, you know,
for, you know, another 15 or 17 years.
And then we quickly realized that I was actually trying to
sell someone a membership one time in our organization.
And this guy told me this is exactly when it started.
As a matter of fact, I said, hey, you know, we like you to
join an organization. And, and even though they handle
some oil, you know, they did a lot of other things.
The companies evolved. He goes, well, we're not really
an oil recycling company and I said, well, we're not really
just an oil recycling association.
And was that at that point, I realized that Nora was too
limiting for us, even though it was a great vessel to get us to
where we are. Then we spent a couple years,
Sean, and going through this rebrand.
We had a strategy meeting, we did focus groups.
We saw how other associations had failed and rebranding
because it can happen very easily.
And we brought it together and that's when we were able to just
last November rebrand as Infinite, the Industrial Liquid
Recyclers Association. And that really kind of we're
sticking close to our core. And the great thing is we are,
we are, our industry has evolved.
We need to make sure the association evolved.
And this name helped us mirror what that evolution looked like.
Well, you know the name is is genius.
Really. Scott, I don't know if that's
you who came up with this day, but if it is, that's.
Great, I had a little help with that.
Because when you think about it, and I saw your little, your
rebranding video on YouTube and it's the infinite possibilities
or infinite ways you can recycle a product, a liquid waste,
right? And it's because there's so many
different products, whether that's glycol, solvents,
caustics, you know, methanol, you know, used oil, obviously,
right? There's just so many different
waste streams that are liquids that are able to be recycled.
It's infinite and that possibilities for the reuse is
infinite. And so kudos to you for that
because that was really great. I like that.
And by the way, the domain name was available, so that was also
a benefit for us. That's even better, right?
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I can see your challenge
of trying to gain new members when your name is Nora, you
know, the National Oil recycling Association because like they're
like, well, we do a little bit, but we're that's not our main
game. Our main game is, you know,
maybe it's solvent recycling and you know about about crystal
clay. Come on, those guys, you know,
there's huge insolvent recycling.
Of course, they do oil recycling too, and so does all a lot of
other companies. But you know, it was AI mean.
I can imagine it was a little bit limiting and restrictive for
your attracting new new members because they had a different
association of what you guys really did do.
Totally. And you know, I think one of the
greatest sort of 1, you know, you have these aha moments like,
you know, it's like, wow, OK, now I get it for us.
You know, I sit here at our association headquarters, you
know, I don't operate a truck or a facility and I really have to
allow the members help me understand what they do so I can
help represent them in a variety of different ways.
And at one of our meetings was maybe a year and a half, two
years ago, and I put about 40 of our members in a room was a
hollow square. And I had people going around
telling me about how they, you know, how these companies had
diversified and, and many of these companies diversified in a
similar way, but many of them were diversifying in different
ways because of the local markets, because of local
industry, whatever it might be. But there was 1 commonality, OK.
And the fact is that these companies had permits and
operations that could handle primarily oil and water.
And because they had permits and health and safety standards and
trucks and all these things that in fact trucks, guess what?
That was the beginning of them saying, oh, because I'm doing
this and because we're going to every generator that exists in
the country, we can also provide these other services that they
need here. So that was that kind of was the
platform to get them to whatever they're doing.
And you look at these companies, many of them look similar, but
man, a lot of them, they're very unique to their particular
marketplace. But oil and water was where it
starts. But that's not necessarily where
their growth opportunities are. Yeah, they probably might have
bigger revenues with other services than just oil, which is
fine too. It's just that spring
springboard them into that area of the business, which is great.
You know, Infinite members recycle billions of gallons of
industrial liquid waste annually.
You know, what are the biggest operational or regulatory
challenges that you're that they're facing today?
It's a great and a very big question.
It's hard to answer that within the time frame of the podcast we
have here. But I will tell you that because
the members have diversified, it's not like there's like one
thing and we can't handle this one constituent that is coming
in the oil or something like that.
There are several. I would say kind of overall with
the entire sector, a lot of it has to do with just maintaining
the top. And you saw this at all the
presentations at the event. We were just at maintaining a
culture of environmental health and safety, that health and
safety, the aspect of it by far, I think you know it, we heard,
you know, when a garbage truck turns over, OK, when a, you
know, with truck carrying oil or water or whatever, we're
handling tips over or, you know, we have an injury.
So that is a, in fact, one of the things, Sean, you may not
know this, but we actually started about 13 years ago.
Every year we have an environmental health and safety
conference that we bring in our professionals, the owners of the
company, and we talk about best practices.
We bring in police officers, We talk about the latest
technology, technology and rail. So operationally, I mean, that
may not seem as you know, interesting, you know, as
opposed to something else. Clearly we, we still continually
have occasionally problems with a PCBS ending up in, in oil that
we may pick up. There may be some other things,
but I would say just overarching health and safety.
That is that that's Step 1. Nothing else happens without
self health and safety first. I'm sorry.
Go ahead. I was going to say, I was going
to say another area that just struck me during our recent
conference we both were at was the operational challenges of
getting qualified drivers that seemed to be, that seemed to be
a big pain point if I recall for all of them.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, there's going to
be more downward pressure next year on on availability of truck
drivers. But here's the interesting thing
that makes our sick sector even more challenging than you're
over the road drivers, OK. A lot of times, you know,
drivers, I'm speaking generally here, but you know, they like
the solitude sometimes, you know, I'm just going down the
road being myself, you know, taking care of my job and, you
know, doing those things. Our drivers have to do that.
In addition, they're going to, you know, when we're doing these
collections that we're going out, we call them milk runs.
We may be picking up, you know, 500 a thousand, 3000 gallons at
a location. We're showing up there.
Then our, our drivers also have to have a customer service
aspect of it because they're interacting with that customer
there. They also have to be trained in
all the health and safety things because they may be climbing on
top of a truck, they may be going into a different
situation. So we need like, we need super
truck drivers. Like our, in fact, the drivers
and our space are so highly coveted and qualified.
Now, one of the advantages that we do have though, is many of
our drivers are able to stay sort of local.
Like, you know, they're not driving across the country and
coming back typically, not always, but typically they're in
that, that, that general range. But yeah, truck drivers a huge
issue. I mean, if we don't collect the
material, we can't recycle it so well.
And, and a lot of them, they need their hazmat endorsement
too. So there's the regulatory side
of this as well for those guys, you know, hauling and they've
got to make sure the paperwork's properly signed off on and
they've got placarding requirements.
I mean, it's dot and, and, you know, retro and, and, or you
know, EPA regulations. It's, it's a lot there for those
drivers. And you're right, I think they
are fairly coveted, you know, personnel for any operation.
Yeah, you're exactly right. And there's more to that.
And then the second part of your question I do with regulatory
and yeah, probably and I think we'll be talking about this
little air on is P Foss. Obviously that is the biggest
thing here. But there's a lot of nuanced
issue. So if you go back again, without
what we used to be Nora, without Nora, the entire used oil
regulatory system would not be in place, The water system would
not be in place. But today it's a lot of nuanced
things like we're dealing with an issue in Illinois that
they're interpreting 1 acronym by the wrong name.
And so it changes the sulfur limits.
We've gotten involved in issues in New York as it relates to
parts cleaning equipment. And so it's probably for your
general audience, they would, they would get a little bored if
they start to hear the nuanced things.
But they're all really important because, you know, most of our
companies, even the largest companies to be honest, but most
of our companies, you know, don't have someone in
Washington, DC And, you know, oftentimes we describe ourselves
as a tip of the sphere. And so we work together.
They help educate our team here and then we represent them
before whatever group that needs to be represented.
So but yeah, there's there's a lot of nuanced things.
And again, if someone is really interested and give me a call
and I can go through it with you, but it's it gets pretty
boring. Maybe you could talk a little
bit about, I mean, it sounds like, you know, my understanding
of, of what the organization does to support the industry is
you are doing, I guess, a little bit of lobbying of, of, you
know, the, the legislators that, you know, the, the Congress for
various regulatory policies, right?
And you're in, you're in Virginia, you're in the DC area,
if I recall. And you know, so maybe talk
about, you know, how Infinite is supporting its members by
navigating complex environmental regulations or especially around
merging containments like P Foss you just brought up.
Sure. Yeah.
Let me just talk about P Foss for a second there in compare
in. I might want to compare it and
contrast it with two different situations.
There's certain issues, right, that we take the lead on as an
association. And it's very common in
Washington DC, even though we think our industry is huge in
terms of the lobbying market in DC, we're very, very small.
Sure. You know, our budgets, our
influence is pretty small. So we typically work in
coalitions. So let me let me talk about a
coalition that we recently formed that we were the lead on
and then I'll talk about P Foss in an opposite way in just a
second. Yeah, so back in and back four
or five years ago, there was a move at the start in Vermont,
but then kind of bled down to the USEPA and they were they're
going to put something out for public comment again, anytime
something goes out for public comment, it just was like, you
know, there who knows where it's going to go.
And they were looking to change the definition of what oily
wastewater is OK today. Basically, if it has oil in it
at basically any percentage, it can be managed under the used
oil rules, OK, EPA was looking to consider changing that to be
that it had to have more than 50% oil in it to be managed
under that. That's that's very uncommon.
That's a high bar. So, you know, if you have this
now, the what ends up happening, one of the things that we're
seeing happening in Washington, DC is think about this.
Most of the regular environmental regulations were
drafted in the 80s and 90s. Guess who's retiring?
The people that wrote those rules in the 80s and 90s.
So there's a new generation that's coming up.
So we went ahead. We, we, we brought a team of
people in through the Small Business Administration to EPA
and they had their water department there, they had the
oil department. And we helped them understand
with real life companies how these regulations work together
to protect the environment. Once they understood and I think
we were able to have some back and forth, they pulled back from
that, that position and it did not set up for public comment.
The point of that is that we created what we call the Part
279 coalition. Part 279 is the used oil
management standards and we had about 7 or 8 different
associations that fell in line with us and we took the lead on
it. Now in P Foss, right man, P Foss
is going to be with us for a long time as an issue.
We are the, we are the part of the sector, right?
That is the ones that are going to be taking it and managing it
before it is discharged to the water authorities.
We are now part of, we are now a member of what's called the P
Foss Coalition in DC. It's made-up of municipalities.
It's made-up of different trade groups.
And we are the 1 trade group in there that is, is helping them.
And then they are. So we're, we're not the lead on
that one, but we are a integral part as they interact with EPA
directly to understand what is achievable, what, what's the new
technology that's there. And so we are the voice, we're
the mouthpiece for all the companies that are trying to
figure out this very muddy environment, right of what is,
what's the future of P Foss management going to look like?
So that's that's where we are on that.
Well, that's really good too, because I'm sure the the
industry is looking for someone to help represent them with
these conversations with, you know, from a policy perspective.
I mean, the EPA just recently came out with some new proposed,
you know, changes to the existing rule that was just
just, you know, approved last year that they were going to
pull back a lot of things so and extend some of the the
deadlines. So it's like, wow, OK, how's
this going to affect the industry, right?
And and then who's talking to EPA to help them understand
maybe the challenges from from the service providers
perspective. And that's good to see that you
guys are in there either through coalitions or directly helping,
you know, advocate for the industry.
Yeah, we meet a couple of times a year.
We meet more frequently if we need to.
That PFOS coalition meets once a month.
And if there's information that they need from our side because
there's other people involved in there, we help them understand
that. One of the things that I was
very happy to see EPA did, and I think we we heard about this, is
that they had, they have now revised.
The secretary there has revised. Advise how often they're going
to come up with suggested treatment options.
The initial list that came out, there were three potential
options on the table, which included a storage, which is not
a great option, deep well injection and a few others.
They now committed to releasing a new report once a year.
Our members are involved in all sorts of research and
development, as you might imagine, where the ones are
treating the water and there's a lot of different technologies
that are coming out. How do we do it?
It's a great thing that when a company again becomes part of
any trade association, including ours, they can, they realize,
hey, I can go to the meeting, Then I can go home and try to
make sure I, I can balance the budget of the company, you know,
make money doing this and realize that they have an
organization that is representing them, you know,
before whatever group. And then we have to raise our
hand, raise the red flag when we say, hey, we need more
information from you. And that's sort of the back and
forth. So it's it's a very efficient
met model for members. Oh, that's really good.
I mean, that's that's great to see that you guys are doing that
type of advocacy and supporting the members and then getting
that information. It's a two way St. it's back and
forth. You guys are providing
information back to the members and that's really good.
I mean, so you know, we talked about supporting the members.
I know you have a very large conference coming up next month.
You want to talk a little bit about that?
If we could before we dive into a few other questions, Scott,
because I think this is a great opportunity to kind of tee up,
you know, what you guys are doing there in Florida for your
big annual conference. And, and you know, why, why
should members, why should people in the industry come and
attend? Maybe they're not even a member
yet, but they need to be. So talk about this.
Talk about it. Sure.
Again, it's, you know, thing about the rebrand and it's us
having to help companies understand why they might want
to involve. What we've been finding is that
the strongest possible way that that people start to say, hey,
that's a home for me. That's where I belong is by
people looking at our 340 member companies and going, hey, I'm
partners with them, I'm competitor with them.
I, I buy from them, I'm they realize that this is their
marketplace. And again, that's what's led to
our significant growth over the last couple years.
It's just a again, 100 new members in just the last two
years. Anyway, regarding the upcoming
conference, we have a very specialized industry education
program, great speakers, but probably the most important
thing is the networking that goes on there.
We'll have a trade show, we'll have 57 companies displaying
everything from trucks to insurance to health and safety
technology and AI, all sorts of different things to drive
efficiency. But probably the number one
reason by far that's, you know, yes, we're involved in DC and
helping people in the government affairs side.
And yes, you can come to some of these nice events that we have.
The number one thing, and I think that it was what makes
this industry very unique from my perspective, is that
competitive editors work together in this space.
I've heard the word use coopetition.
I've heard, you know, all sorts of things.
I'll be on the phone with the member and they're like, oh, you
know, my direct competitors truck is in our yard right now.
If a company wants to go in and really be a turnkey provider,
and again, if we're handling all types of industrial liquids, the
likelihood that I'm actually treating all those liquids is
probably fairly low. OK.
But if I, I now have access to what we're calling infinite
24/7, where they can come and meet these people and have
dinner with them, develop a relationship.
And my big mantra here is that people, you know, think about
this during COVID, right? Oh, you know, Zoom, we don't
have to go to meetings anymore. We'll just go on Zoom.
OK, Well, OK, you know what? I've come up with a little
phrase here that people do business with people they know
and trust. 100%. And how do we get to know each
other? We get to know each other by
getting together, meeting face to face.
I get to like you by having dinner with you, finding out
about your family. Now the trust comes in and man,
how easy is it to do business with people you trust?
And so the number one reason is that if someone looks at our
list of member companies, they're going to say, you know
what? I've never been able to do
business with them. We have all, everybody that
attends our meeting is a decision maker, every single
person. So if you come there, you're
going to be able to drive your business and that's it's all
about the networking, it's all about business development and
building relationships. Well, I couldn't agree more on
on the approach there. Hello ET Nation, I want to thank
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And that's the one thing I noticed at EI Digest as well.
It was decision makers and it was the networking with every
one of these big industry players and they're all working
together. Now you might see that they're
like the competition, but they all work together and they all
kind of have channel partners that they're all doing business
together. And for me, coming from the
consulting side of the industry, right, not seeing that part of
the industry in operation in in real time, real life, I was
like, whoa, OK, this is interesting.
All right, this is good. I I'm I'm seeing another side of
the industry. I didn't understand, right.
And so to hear, you know, what you're, you're doing with
infinite there, I mean, wow. I mean, I can't imagine that
people who attend won't come away with infinite amounts of
networking opportunities and connections, right?
I mean, it's gonna be awesome. Well, I think there's one little
story I'll share with you. This happened from last year,
OK. And it's, you know, a lot of
times we one of the challenges like when you're selling a
membership, it's very intangible.
What do you get you get networking, OK, what that's very
intangible thing. Let me share with you a real
example. What happened last year.
We had a member of ours recently joined from Guam.
OK, He, you know, a lot of times we tell our members before you
join, hey, don't you feel like you're on an island?
And you know what else? He's literally on an island,
right? Literally in Guam, Geez.
There's not many options out there either.
No, no. But you know, you know, it's not
like you can talk to his neighbors about, you know, best
practices with, you know, liquid recycling and how to keep my
driver safe and what are the markets etcetera, etcetera.
So he actually flew into our event last year in California
and was there. It just was blown away.
We were very hospitable group before we get if you're a first
time attendee, we host a first time reception with our board of
directors for you. So everybody you automatically
break in to our great network. But here's what happened.
He I introduced him to one of our board members who's at a
Detroit, MI and he's a a mid sized company.
You're not not a huge company. They started talking.
The guy from Guam extended his trip several days, flew at the
invitation to that member in Detroit and spent two or three
days with him learning how they run their operations to share,
to bring back to his organization.
That's the type of that's the type of culture we have at our
organization. Massive amounts of sharing and
it's real. A lot of times people are like,
I don't know, is it? I'm like, it's real.
It just comes experience at one time and then you're a member
for life essentially. Wow, talk about helping you know
your your fellow man and you know, partner in the industry.
That's that's pretty awesome. Yes.
That is that's amazing. That is amazing.
Well, so this big events coming up in Florida.
OK, so how do they get information?
How do people, you know, find out, you know, where it is, when
it is, what's the cost? I mean, kind of somewhere like,
you know, maybe you're an individual that works for a
company that may not be a member, you know, so there's
that. And then maybe you're a company
who wants to come and be a member as a member, as a
company. How does this work?
Sure. So basically it's a great
question and the answer's a little complex, but I'll try to
simplify it here. You know, typically we have a
program where we want companies that have not participated
before, they have not attended an event before.
We do have a program where they can attend at the member rate if
they haven't attended before in that type of capacity and we
want them to come in and the, the, the cost to participate is
a little bit flexible depending on the type of company it is.
There's a couple different categories, but it's very
affordable compared to related conferences.
But I will say this, that the the event to get the direct
information, you can go to our website, whichisinfinite.org,
which links to our legacy website,
wereintherebrandprocess@noranews.org. All the information's up there.
But if anybody just sends us an e-mail to Sparker at Nora News,
I'm sorry, Sparker at infinite.org now is our new
e-mail address. Send that to me.
I'll get them the information they need.
But we again, next year, even if, you know, this is a little
bit late in the game, you know, just try to get to Florida next
year. We have our winter meeting which
include it, which includes our Environmental Health and Safety
forum that's in February in Fort Worth, TX.
Then we're going to have our, our mid year meeting next year
in Pittsburgh, which will be in June.
And then we'll have our annual event, which is going to be in
the Palm Springs area next November.
And we move this around so that, you know, geographically it's
easier for some companies to get into and it's, you know that.
So again, it doesn't even if you're missing this one, that's
OK. We have 3 events a year.
And again, if we get back to networking, if you attend one
event a year, that's great. If you do it three times, your
networking is accelerated by three times, Sean.
Yeah, that's absolutely. That's three times there's more
people I can connect with and network with and, and discover
new opportunities to drive business.
So I love it. I love it.
I think it's great. OK, so infinite.org, right?
And then they can get all the details.
So that's that's awesome. So let's dive into another
topic. I think it's really on top of
mind for so many people right now in the industry is it's
really about technology and you know, technology is rapidly
transforming waste management and how it's being done.
You know, how's Infinite members leveraging innovation like AI,
automation, advanced filtration, you know, to improve their
services or what are you seeing across the board?
And is Infinite focusing on technology as a kind of a a main
theme or topic that they're focusing on?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's interesting, some
of the technology that is even being introduced today has been
around for 20 years. I've seen some of these
exhibitors that are shows 20 years ago, but at that point I
almost called a bleeding edge technology.
You know, it was like so early, right?
It was a little sci-fi, you know, trying to get something
out there. I'll give you an example in just
a second. The other thing that we're
seeing as a trend and you're seeing this across all sectors,
including ours, is the, you know, we're a mature
marketplace. So you're seeing consolidation
happening? Right.
Oh. Yeah, but but but with
consolidation with larger companies, those companies have
a a greater ability to adopt technology.
They have more sources as opposed to maybe a company that
has like 10 or 12 trucks, let's say like that.
Anyway, going back to technology, one of the things
that was shown probably 20 years ago but really is taking off now
is remote tank monitoring. You know, if the number one
thing that we do as an industry, it's all starts with efficient
aggregation of the material. We have to go out and collect
this stuff. But guess what, if we don't know
how much is in a tank, how do we have effective routes, efficient
routes to get from point A to point B?
Just that's one example. Then obviously all that data has
to filter into, into some sort of technology base that allows
us to develop the routes. So we have members that on all
aspects of this, you know, tank monitoring in the truck itself,
tank monitoring, monitoring out in the field, having that field
going up. And so you're efficiently
aggregating, which is a significant cost factor to to
grab the stuff in. On the also on the technology
side, we're seeing, you know, if AI is really good at some things
as terrible at others, I could tell you AI is terrible at
understanding the music I want to hear on my playlist.
OK, I'm like it must be. Artifly is not doing that for
you. I'm just.
Saying it says, oh, songs you might like.
I'm like, no, it's artificial intelligence, but but where are
AI is really good is right, like repetitive task things where
there's a data set to kind of balance things against.
So you know, you, you think about what do we do as an
industry for our clients compliance.
We make sure that our our customers stay compliant.
OK. That means that the paperwork
has to be accurate and the manifest and all the related
paperwork as you were mentioning earlier with the trucks there,
there's that is a perfect way for AI.
Some of our software vendors, I know some of them have been on
your podcast the past that are members of great members of ours
and but they're integrating that type of technology.
So what you're doing is what used to be very much of A
repetitive or at least a very administrative task type of
project. That's where AI is able to come
in and help. And that that's just the
beginning. I mean there's so much that's
going into it now. We're not even talking about the
treatment facilities. That's a whole nother.
We're talking about the collection and it's like because
all the, you know, if you're running a re refinery, which you
know, there's been a massive transformation on where oil is
being processed. So you're now seeing that in
these advanced technologies on how they're using technology to
make their systems even more efficient.
So yeah, it has to be so. Oh, the last thing is on our
conference, the last conference and this conference, we each
have a technology panel where we bring in vendors that are
attending our event. They come in and they're both
either all given a set up time to talk to people in the
audience that are really interested in technology because
they can drive efficiencies which Dr. profits and success of
the business. Where are you guys doing
anything around the whole E manifest process with the with
you know your members and advocating or or commenting on
the process through EPA 'cause that seems to be one of the
biggest challenges for a lot of companies.
Yes, I, I was. That falls into the category of
when we were talking about coalitions, you know, we're not
the like, you know, sometimes we're the lead and sometimes we
work in partnerships with others.
We have been working specifically on an E manifest
issue in California because they are their program's a little
different than the federal program and so of.
Course. So we've been and again, that's
that's where our members work through us to kind of do it.
But yeah, the E manifest system, it seems like we've been talking
about it for, you know, forever. I don't know how long, how in,
in each time you talk to a company, it's like they're
complaining about 1 aspect of it, another aspect of it.
And you know, I, I actually think what a challenge it must
be, right, to develop an E manifest for every application
in every state and every type of company.
You know, one of the things that was probably more recently done
that was that we worked on a little bit was the electronic
logs on trucks. You know that, you know that in
that somewhat integrates with the E manifest.
But I know there's issues with, you know, it's ADOT that is
governing this. You know who you know, and you
have to have the paper copy as well as the electronic copy.
And so we get involved with it, but as a coalition, because we
clearly are not the only ones that are feeling the pain of E
manifest out there. Yeah.
Well, OK.
Just curious on that because it's part of this whole
technology discussion in some form or fashion, which may not
be the main thing driving individual business.
But I think it is having a, you know, a technology challenge for
a lot of businesses to put the systems in place to, you know,
do the reporting. And so that's where some of
these big software companies come into play that can help,
you know, like Wastelink and others who are integrating into
those systems. That's pretty cool.
But yeah, for sure, I think that's that's great.
Well, you know, we visited, I'm not we, you visited recently a
couple member facilities. Talk about some of the best
practices or trends that stood out to you during a couple of
those tours. And maybe talk a little bit
about the companies you visited because you mentioned, you know,
you're you're there in DC, you're not operating a facility.
You're not, you know, you're not running trucks down the street
and picking up your liquid waste.
You know, the more you can get boots on the ground and actually
put your rise on the facility so you get a conceptual
understanding how this thing works for a lot of your members
is the all the better, right? So talk a little bit about how
that helps you and what you saw. Yeah, I'll tell you, it's it
helps recharge your batteries, right?
You get out there and actually see the real stuff.
You know you and I are sitting here on a podcast, right?
Not really doing. We're not really doing anything,
you know, we're not collecting the material.
We're doing some good stuff, we're just not doing the hard,
dirty work. But I'm telling you, sometimes
you have to go out and get dirty a little bit.
You know, like, like Rd. talks about The Dirty jobs and, and
things. And so I had a business trip
that I, I chose to drive up to Cleveland, OH.
And on the way there, I stopped in Canton, OH, Youngstown, OH in
Pittsburgh, PA, saw three different member companies.
And I'll tell you by far, this is, you get into this, you
realize how professionally run these operations are.
You know, we think, oh, you know, it's, it's a dirty
recycling or oil job. And you get into it, you
realize, man, this is like very, very professionally run
operations. I saw three different, you know,
1 was a brand new facility. The other two have been around a
while, but they but some of the best practices that were there.
Let me tell you one of my things that was one of the things that
was most impressive to me is that we think of these companies
as doing one thing and they're doing so many.
They're handling so many different materials coming in,
right? And you think about the
regulatory issues regarding that, you think about the safety
issues, you know regarding that with the lab on the front end
coming in, what are we dealing with?
Yeah. Is it flammable?
Is it caustic? You know, is it combustible?
Do I, can I, where do I what tank does it go into?
Right. You know, where can I store it?
Yeah. Well, and you also have the
issue. A lot of times your generator is
saying it's this and you get it on site and it's not that,
right? Yeah, that's a problem.
So we. Non conforming waste is not
good. No, no, but that's we.
But yes, you know at the end of the day, you know we are the
ones that are taking, you know it's important that we are there
taking everything in and handling like you said, the
paperwork, the safety and these kind of things.
I also found particularly for some of these I would call mid
sized companies, the challenges of having to do not have
specialized departments, right. You think about some of the
biggest companies in the space and they have a whole department
for health and safety and they. Have a whole department.
For this meanwhile, here you have the you know the operation
managers also responsible for the lab may also be responsible
for you know the safety going on the field multiple.
Hats. It is it's, you know, the
proverbial spinning plates make, you know, none of them can fall.
And I was just sitting there going, I think my head would if
I were in that spot, I think my head would explode.
But man, these they're they had cool, calm and collected.
And you know, you're doing all this and you're trying to
maintain a profitable operation. You know, so it's like what you
have to do it right. You have to have health and
safety, you have to have the all your regulatory stuff in line.
And I think you're mentioning early, you know, technology is
going to be, I think a help, particularly to companies like
that, that really, you know, they, they, they could use
something like artificial intelligence or something else
so they can spend more time doing the real work of, you
know, really making sure the materials handled properly.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, that's, that's good. I mean, it's always good to get
first to, you know, get your eyes first hand on, on an
operation. And you have done hundreds of
audits of TSDFS over the years. And it's really great to you
know, you walk in, you see the condition of the property.
They get Good Housekeeping, their paperwork's in order.
You know, their, their systems are in place.
You know, their people are well trained and, and things like
that. I mean, you can quickly tell
when the operations is a little leaky, right?
You know, they're not so strong and, and that gives cause and
concern for these big generators when those audits are done and
identify those challenges because now they they have
reputational risk they have to manage, right.
So it's important that that this is all those things you just
mentioned are are in place and sounds like those facilities you
saw were in good shape. Yes, and you know, I, I think
you're exact right. You know what, at the end of the
day, for those generators, they're looking for compliance
and, or, you know, and there's so many and oftentimes you, if
you ever call rate some of these regulatory departments, whether
it's a region or whether it's a state or even a locality,
sometimes, hey, how do I do this?
And they typically are not going to tell you how to do it.
They're going to say, it depends on your situation, right?
So then you're sitting there having to try to interpret what
the regulations are. And I can tell you, there's
often times where you can read two different regulations that
both apply to you that you could interpret to say, do it two
different ways. And so that is, I think that,
you know, when you look at these facilities, you know, they make,
again, that's why they rely on the network to talk to other
companies, to talk to some of the professionals in the space.
Like you were saying, consultants.
We have many that are part of our our group as well, trying to
do, you know, what we think is, is supposed to be done.
But you bring up a good point. The generator, whether they're a
large generator or a small generator, you know, no one
wants to become part of a, you know.
Superfund site. Superfund site exactly right.
And so you know, when you start seeing this and realize that the
generator has that cradle to grave responsibility, that means
that the generator also has a responsibility to know who
they're dealing with. And again, I'm I'm biased
clearly, but I think that when you look at people that are in
the members of our organization, the we have every member has to
sign our guiding principles before they join.
And the very first one by far is that we make environment, health
and the safety a primary part of all decisions as it regards to
compliance and to facilities and every policies and procedures.
And we focus on that and we make it, we try to make it real.
Do mistakes happen? You know, absolutely.
But if you have a track record, even if a mistake happens, if
you have a track record of doing the right thing, I mean, you're
going to come out clean on the other side because you know
you're trying to do the right thing all the time.
You know, you you've got an environmental health and safety,
you know, I guess mid year conference.
Do you provide, I guess topics for helping stay in compliance
for these operators? You know, what are the best
practices for permitting or permitting support?
Or, you know, here's how you should be focusing on, you know,
managing and maintaining your SPCC plans.
You know, let's you know those type of things.
What? What Talk a little bit about if
you could, maybe how you were providing some technical
assistance? Yeah, We just had a meeting as I
was looking around from my notes, I don't see them right
here, but we just had a meeting last week with our Environmental
Health and Safety Council. We had about 20 people on the
phone identifying topics. We've yeah, we look at whatever
the most pressing needs for a membership.
As an example, as marijuana has become more legalized, many of
the states, right, That doesn't impact any of the dot, federal
dot rigs. We had police officers that came
in and talked about that. We also the same police officers
do a walk around like, hey, when your driver gets pulled over,
this is what we're looking for. These are things SPCC plans.
One of the things we also talk about is how do you build a
leadership culture on EH and S at the highest levels who are
going to have to invest in these type of things?
So we've we've had that. So you know, the topics that are
are coming out again, we have about a dozen or so topics.
It's going to boil down to a six, a six session full day
program on health safety and probably more important than the
content that they walk away from it from that meeting.
Although if the content is going to be great, the more important
part is networking with other health and safety professionals
in the liquid recycling space. We have guys that are getting on
the top of trucks, OK, you know that.
And there's liquid. We have people.
Another issue that we have more so now is we're doing field
services. So our people are going out off
site and we're now doing work at someone else's site who has that
ability to say, no, I'm not doing that job, right?
It's, you know, there's a, and we empower the drivers.
We've had lawyers come in, talk about how to prepare for
depositions. And so it's a, it's a wonderful
program. It started off with one of our
members, AXA XL Insurance. They brought it to us and we've
been running it for 13 years now.
So it's a a great, great program that will be held in February in
Fort Worth for next year. That's great.
Well, I mean it sounds like the
the organization is is growing and you guys are doing well.
You've got a lot of new members, you've rebranded and I think you
know, you're on the road for huge success in the years to
come. You know, is there any advice
you'd give any new companies that are, you know, entering in
this industrial liquid recycling space, especially regarding
either one membership compliance concerns or anything around
sustainability? We didn't touch on
sustainability, but I mean, at the heart of what all these
member companies are doing is sustainability.
And I think one of the things that I've been, you know, really
touching on it on on the podcast over the past few years is many
of these people, this is what they've been doing their entire
career. They just didn't call it
sustainability. They were calling it recycling
or, you know, wait, proper waste management and, you know, reuse
and stuff like that. But really it's we they need to
change the vernacular of how they're talking about the
services. So it lines up with the rest of
the industry and how it's really being viewed.
And it is the through that sustainability lens.
And so talk a little bit about if you could that and then what
would you do to encourage industries coming into the
space? Well, you know, many companies
that are either going to come into the space or already in the
space looking at this, obviously I'm very biased.
Obviously I think they should join our organization.
Join. Yeah, but come on.
But you know, but realistically, you know, the way that I always
tell a company, there's never a hard sell if someone talks to us
about the group. If you were involved at all in
in some aspect of industrial liquid recycling, whether it's
emergency response, field services, oil re refining and
everything in between, product destruction, there's so many
areas that that really we cover. Now, if you're involved in any
of those areas, the best investment you could ever make
is to join an organization. And fortunately, we're the only
one in this space to represent that group.
But why? Because guess what?
No one company has all the answers to this.
This information, the ability, as we talked about the
coopetition between these companies, where are you going
to sell your product? You need advice on this, how it
this this has happened more and more often.
Our companies operate huge fleets of trucks.
Guess what happens in an emergency response?
We had two trucks that hit each other.
There's oil going into a stream, a lot of it.
You might have 10 or 12 trucks. You might have to call another
company because you need more than 12 vac trucks.
And we help support the first responders.
So again, when I talked about that company from Guam coming
over, being able to share that information.
And I think probably the other aspect of you go, the other
thing that you mentioned was on sustainability, circular economy
recycling. I've been doing this so long
that I, I can't keep up with all the terms, right?
But at the very heart of what we do right is we collect the
material that should not be entering A landfill.
And that's most important for liquids.
OK, if you, if you're collecting tires, nothing against the tire
recyclers, but if you throw a tire in a landfill, there's not
a lot of bad things are going to happen from a tire being in a
landfill other than the fact that you can't reuse the
material. Most of the stuff where it's
going to seep into the water, right into the groundwater.
So you have to have this. So to that end and I was
mentioning to you earlier about our new website that we're
working on, it's going to be launching in February and the
firm that I have working on they go, this is not like any other
association website we've ever seen.
And it's because it, it's, we are now advocate, we are now
going to be doing that industry promotion that when we were at
that conference, we even the largest companies were saying,
you know what, we didn't generate this material.
And so all this material that that we're handling and no one
knows about our industry, about the good things that we're doing
in the space. This website is going to have
all the top 20 products that and services that we offer.
And it's going to have a description of each one of those
and it's going to describe it. And underneath it, it's then
going to have links to all the companies in our space that do
those services. And so it's going to have, you
know, it's going to have a branding aspect for it.
But I think that the other thing I've seen is that what we are
attempting to do as an association from APR perspective
is really we should be celebrated for what we're doing
for sustainability. 100%. We should be, we should be and
we should be celebrating. The regulator should be working
with us in that regard. Our website, the rebrand video
that you mentioned there, you know, what we're doing is we're
tearing down the walls around these facilities that used to
exist. People are like kind of like,
oh, what's happening back there must be bad.
Must no, let's have a tour, right?
And So what we are going to do as the association, we're
providing the air support support, we're going to be
telling the story in a unified way, all the companies speaking
as one, then our members that are having to deal with the
local regulators or the local communities, they will be the
ground support and we'll be working in together to make sure
that our industry is recognized for what we do for the
environment. Well, that's great.
That's great, Scott. I mean, I think you guys are
doing a great job. I love, you know, what you guys
are doing the, the rebranding, the new website, you know, some
of those priorities of, you know, helping members really
kind of participate in the whole process.
That's really great. And I love the vision you guys
have. Really appreciate you coming on
the show today. We're going to make sure that we
get this information out on the podcast and about the, the
conference that's coming up in no, you know, next couple weeks
in November. So, so if there's any partner
members who haven't signed up yet, they, they see this
podcast, they still may be have a little time to get in there
and sign up, but nothing else that'll give a great opportunity
for new members to consider joining and get in touch with
you guys. So I really appreciate you
coming on the show and telling us all about the infinite and
the great infinite ways you guys are helping industry grow and
recycle and create circular economy.
Thank you so much, Sean. I really appreciate the time
today. Thanks for listening and
watching the show. If you enjoyed the show then
please share it with your friends and Co workers on social
media and tell somebody in person.
Thanks for being with us, ET Nation.