Minimising waste

At TDX we’re working hard to help reduce the number of plastic lubricant containers entering our landfills. This is great for the planet and good for our industry. 

Around 4.5 million lubricant containers are discarded every year in New Zealand. Only a small percentage of these containers are recycled, with the rest going straight to landfill. Containers that are contaminated with oil residue cannot be recycled unless all oil residue is removed. Achieving that is no easy task.

TDX, Shell Lubricants and a small group of other lubricant manufacturers and distributors have been funding New Zealand’s Waste Lubricant Container Product Stewardship Scheme since 2018. Our goal is to bring the sector together to find the best solution for removal of oil residue to enable recycling. 

The good news is that the group is closing in on our goal of having a nationwide solution in place by early to mid-2021. 

While new legislation will enforce suppliers and producers to be part of this group, here at TDX we are proud to be a voluntary front runner in the campaign. Together with Shell we are also working on the development of new innovative packaging solutions to reduce plastic usage.  

We will be keeping you up to date with progress as it happens.

As the world’s number 1 lubricant producer, Shell also has ambitions to use 1 million tonnes of recycled plastic waste a year in its global chemicals plants by 2025 and they are watching the development of the New Zealand Stewardship group closely to see if our success can be rolled out internationally.