If you were to ask Eco Chemical’s owner and president, Mark Cheirrett, about the company’s commitment to environmental stewardship, he would say that it has very little to do with the recent hype around sustainable products.
“First of all, we’ve always had a concern for the environment. We set the company up 25 years ago as an environmental company.” Cheirrett said, “But over the years, we’ve found that our self-imposed ‘eco-centricity’ also made good business sense.”
We strive for environmental sustainability in our product chemistry and packaging choices, for both our TempLine Paint and Eco Stain divisions. All of our products are waterborne and contain little or no VOCs, and our manufacturing processes are specifically designed to reduce waste. We have instituted a variety of innovative practices over the years in pursuit of our environmental stewardship responsibilities. Two very significant practices include our production of concentrated products whenever possible and our efforts to reduce our water waste to near zero. Two examples include our TempLine Box Paint and our waste water capture and reuse practices during stain manufacture.
Ultra-Concentrated Box Paint
This program involves the shipping and distribution of our TempLine Natural Grass Turf Marking Paint. The non-toxic paint is packaged in a concentrated form and shipped in a plastic bag and a recyclable cardboard box, eliminating the need for aerosol propellant gases entering the atmosphere, and aerosol cans (or 5-gallon plastic pails) inevitably flowing into solid waste streams around the country. Each 26 lb. box of TempLine Grass Paint makes about 10 gallons of paint, based on recommended dilution, at a fraction of the cost of aerosol products.
“We’ll ship 96 boxes of our paint on a pallet. Those 96 boxes weigh approximately the same as a pallet of 48, 5-gallon pails of paint,” Cheirrett said.
So, Eco Chemical can ship the equivalent of 960 gallons of paint per pallet, as opposed to the 240 gallons shipped in pails by our competitors. At 14 pallets to a truckload, each truckload of Eco Chemical product represents the equivalent of 13,440 gallons of paint being shipped, almost 10,000 gallons more than competitors.
Being able to fit almost four times as much paint on one truck means lower freight costs and a substantially reduced carbon fuel footprint per gallon of paint. Not having to pay for shipping water typically associated with grass paint is a huge plus for customers, but the boxes have an additional benefit.
“All cardboard boxes are recyclable,” Cheirrett said. “People say plastic pails are recyclable, but no one ever does. They just throw them away.”
Getting back to the point of making good business sense, our customer’s appreciation for the convenience and economy of TempLine Grass Paint is reflected in sales increases of over 70% in the past year. The environmental benefits of TempLine have been recognized as well. In the past year, Eco Chemical has been the recipient of the National Pollution Prevention Award from the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable, and the Safer Chemistry Champion award from the Washington State Department of Ecology.
Zero Discharge Program
Our Eco Stain division has a zero discharge program that captures all the wash water after stain is made, bringing us very close to achieving that goal of absolute zero discharge.
The wash water is put to the side, and the next day it’s used in the next batch of stain. This dramatically reduces the sewer costs associated with our manufacturing processes, and decreases the total amount of fresh water needed to manufacture the product.
“This is a great environmental practice, but it also lowers our manufacturing cost,” Cheirrett said.
Additionally, Eco Chemical doesn’t have to deal with government regulation or compliance issues associated with the use of more environmentally hazardous ingredients. This means less wasted resources, including time, testing, materials, and equipment.
“Since we don’t work with hazardous materials, we bypass all that hassle and expense,” Cheirrett said.
Visit our website or contact us to learn more about our environmental stewardship initiatives.
