SAFETY KLEEN: COMPANY SEEKS SOLUTIONS FOR WASTE MANAGEMENT

The Cape Girardeau Safety-Kleen transfer facility at 201 Lasalle St. holds waste cleaning solvents, used motor oil and other liquid waste materials that are then transferred to a recycling plant.

More than a million gallons of used motor oil pass through Cape Girardeau each year.

Oil recovery services, auto and industrial parts cleaner services account for the lion's share of revenues generated by Safety Kleen Corp., a local branch of a national company that processes more than 200 million gallons of used oil annually into quality lubricants and various products.

"Our biggest business in this area is automobile retail repair and industrial services," said Don Lind, manager of the Cape Girardeau Safety Kleen operation at 201 Lasalle St.

Through the automotive-retail repair service, the company provides equipment and solvent to customers and collects the spent solvent for recycling and reuse.

"We go on-site to clean and service auto and manufacturing equipment," Lind said. "We also provide fluid recovery services for these businesses."

Lind, who has been with Safety Kleen five years, said the local facility employs 16 people.

Safety Kleen provides services to a number of small businesses, such as auto repair and body shops, auto dealers, service stations, dry cleaners, printers and manufacturers throughout portions of five states -- Southeast Missouri from the Lead Belt to the Bootheel, Northern Arkansas, Western Kentucky and Tennessee, and Southern Illinois.

"We collect about 1.3 million gallons of used oil a year," Lind said. "This is sent to one of our re-refining plants, where it is recycled into a lubricant."

Used motor and industrial oils are classified as special or hazardous wastes in a number of states and can't be integrated into other waste streams.

Safety Kleen collects a number of wastes, among them antifreeze, paint and paint thinners, used oil, degreasers, photo chemicals, printing chemicals and even shoe polish.

There are some items that Safety Kleen can't recycle -- biological wastes, explosives, infectious and radioactive wastes, herbicides, fluorescent light bulbs and syringes.

Safety Kleen has participated in various local community waste collection programs and throughout the nation.

Safety Kleen operates more than 280 branches worldwide, 180 in the United States and five in Missouri. The company's storage facilities are found in Cape Girardeau, Columbia, Independence, St. Charles and Springfield.

Safety Kleen recently received an "Outstanding Achievement Award," for its Missouri operation, including Cape Girardeau, by the Missouri Waste Control Coalition, for outstanding waste management practices.

Safety Kleen received its award during the annual MWCC Conference held last week.

"This award is an honor, not only for Safety Kleen but also for our customers," Lind said.

The Missouri Safety Kleen facilities provide services to more than 10,500 business in the state.

Safety Kleen, headquartered in Elgin, Ill., was founded in 1968 as a small company in Milwaukee, with 400 customers and a profit-and-loss statement with more red than black ink.

The small company, however, had growth potential because its strength was a parts cleaner machine that was better than alternative ways of cleaning dirty metal parts.

Prior to development of parts cleaners, metal parts were usually cleaned in an open pail of gasoline with an old scrub brush, a method that was messy and wasteful, and potentially dangerous.

Safety Kleen, which was acquired by the Chicago Rawhide Manufacturing Co., has become the world's largest recycler of automotive and industrial hazardous and non-hazardous waste fluids. The company has also become the world's largest re-refiner of used oil.

Safety Kleen operated as a subsidiary of the Rawhide company until it was spun off as an independent company in 1974. In 1979, it joined the ranks of public companies and since 1983, it has been traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Stock currently trades at 16 1/8.

The company's core business, nationally, is providing parts cleaner service to automotive repair firms, which accounts for about 30 percent of revenues, with service to more than 400,000 U.S. customers.

Industrial services, which includes cleaning manufacturing equipment, ranging from small neighborhood businesses to small manufacturing companies (total of about 250,000 businesses in the United States), and a fluid-recovery service accounts for 28 percent of income. The oil recovery program, added in 1987, provides 15 percent of total revenue.

More than 500,000 customers worldwide recycle their contaminated waste fluids through the company's collection, processing and delivery.

Most of the company's customers are small businesses.

In addition to parts cleaner services, which provides machine, clean solvent and recycling of old materials, Safety Kleen collects and reclaims paint wastes and thinners, oil and oil filters, and hundreds of industrial fluids.

Safety Kleen employs more than 5,000 workers in the United States and 6,000 worldwide.

In a report to shareholders, John G. Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the company, and Donald W. Brinckman, founder and chairman of the board, reported net earnings of $50.1 million, only the third year in the history of the company that net earnings topped $50 million. This translates into 87 cents a share. Overall revenues were more than $750 million.