Bob Anderson began repairing cars in 1972 in Salem, Oregon out of a residential one-car garage. Today, A.J.’s Auto Repair can accommodate 18 cars at a time, and Bob manages 17 employees. But the most impressive aspect of Bob’s operation are the measures he and his staff have taken to minimize the environmental impact of an industry that is inherently pretty toxic.

“We could clearly see that cleaning auto parts with acid tanks and solvent was extremely hard on people. I’ve been in the trade long enough to see people get diseases and die from those diseases. So we started to talk about how we could change things. Our goal was to find an environmental approach to auto repair, something that was economically viable and environmentally beneficial.”

Bob has a simple two-part philosophy: 1) If you don’t make a mess, you don’t have to clean it up; 2) The best way to handle hazardous waste is not to produce it in the first place. When he began to apply these principles in his shop in 1994, his hazardous waste output was reduced to almost nothing.

The first step was the installation of an oil furnace in the shop that burns used motor oil and other lubricants, eliminating the need for other sources of heat. “The furnace puts out less pollutants than one car idling does. So it burns very clean. If it’s adjusted properly, no smoke comes out of the chimney. Why every auto shop on the planet doesn’t burn used motor oil, I have no idea.” A.J.’s has above-ground, used oil storage tanks in the shop that double as work benches. Spills can easily be detected and cleaned up. Ceiling fans distribute the heat evenly. A.J.’s now has three used oil furnaces and burns about 4,000 gallons of motor oil a year.

“Customers bring this motor oil to us in the crank case of their car. We change the oil and charge them for it, and then heat the shop with it. What an excellent plan.” Bob calculates that over ten years, the savings from avoiding the costs of oil disposal or natural gas heat will come to over $42,000.

The second major part of A.J.’s anti-waste plan was installation of a solvent-free, high pressure hot water-based washer for cleaning auto parts. Now it takes just minutes to clean car parts inside and out. They come out of the washer hot enough to air dry quickly, ready to be painted or rebuilt. The washer unit has a built in oil-separator that also recycles the water; the separated oil goes to the furnace. Avoiding solvent-based cleaners means A.J.’s technicians aren’t breathing toxic fumes. And the water can be reused to mop the floors.

“It’s a very efficient way of washing parts. It saves us about an hour and 25 minutes per day of repair technician time, because it is just like a dishwasher. They time it. While it’s washing the parts, they work on the cars, instead of standing at the sink washing in solvents.” Because of that time savings, Bob estimates the parts washer paid for itself within four months.

Bob has plans to be even more crafty and efficient with water. “We want to take used plastic water tanks out of motor homes to collect the water from our roof, and then use that water in the parts washers. Our goal is to have no heat from the city and no water from the city, except what we need to flush toilets with.”

When it comes to other substances, A.J.’s customers leave with the same antifreeze and freon gas their cars came in with. “The antifreeze that comes out of automobiles gets its freezing level adjusted, it’s Ph level adjusted and then we pump it right back into the car. Occasionally we buy new antifreeze when it becomes too diluted. But we buy less than half of the new antifreeze that we did five years ago. We do the same thing with freon gas. When you bring your car in and say your air conditioning doesn’t work, our mechanics suck all the freon out and clean and filter it. They patch any leaks in the system, repair it, and then pump the freon back into it.”

A.J.’s office and customer waiting room is outfitted with carpet squares that are remanufactured from tires that require less cleaning that standard carpet because they do not absorb petroleum-based products. But some of the measures A.J.’s has undertaken are not specific to their industry. Skylights were installed in the shop to mini- mize the need for electrical lighting. Thorough office recycling has kept disposal costs down. Says Bob, “We’ve been here since 1976 and this business has doubled in the last five years. We have the same sized dumpster we had when we started.”

A.J.’s is currently working with Oregon Environmental Council and the state Department of Environmental Quality on a program aimed at reducing mercury pollution by removing mercury light switches in cars, free of charge. Bob reports that being Salem’s lead participant in the program has been good for business, even though they don’t charge for the “switch out” service. “Over an eight month period of time we did over $25,000 worth of work on 80 people’s automobiles that came to us initially to have their switch replaced for free. From a business standpoint, that worked.”

“For any environmental task to work in business, it has to pay,” says Bob. “From a business standpoint, we have to make a profit. That means when we make an investment, whatever we invest in has to pay back in proportion to the investment. We’ve saved about $100,000 in the last 10 years with the investments we’ve made. And our business has doubled in the last five years, so we’re doing something right.

“A really good way to make money is to not spend money. If you don’t spend it on heat – that’s a big thing in this kind of a business – then it’s a savings. And if you can improve productivity and save people’s time, it adds up very quickly.”

“Sure, we’ve tried some little things that didn’t work,” says Bob. “But, we’ve never lost money on our major changes, because we research them pretty closely beforehand.”

Bob is continuously looking to improve A.J.’s, and he involves staff in that effort. “An important part of what we do is have barbeques/ company meetings every Friday. Part of those meetings involves discussing environmental issues and what our company is doing environmentally. We’re in the process right now of trying to determine how to use the old motor oil to drive a steam generator to heat the shops and to wash the parts because steam is even better than hot water at cleaning parts.”

Bob is actively working to share what he’s learned in his 30 years in auto repair industry, currently serving as the mechanical and environmental chairperson for the Pacific Automotive Trade Association. He has worked closely with the Department of Environmental Quality on a number of projects and serves on its citizen’s advisory panel. Bob has also served on the Governor’s Environmental Council for Automotive Sustainability, and as a volunteer on the Salem Friends of Pringle Creek Project.

There is a large glass case in A.J.’s that displays numerous government and industry awards. Bob is quick to share the credit for the environmental recognitions A.J.’s has received. “All of our people here participate in that process, which is how it works. If it was just me, it wouldn’t work.”

Contact
A.J.’s Auto Repair, Inc.
Bob Anderson, Owner
1858 13th Street SE
Salem, OR 97302
503.581.7737
www.ajsautorepair.com