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The company behind last week’s “smelly vapours”, which turned up noses across Pukekohe recently, has confirmed the odour was caused by engineering issues at its new waste oil re-refining (recycling) plant.
As reported at the time, the gas-like substance is not flammable, and while the fumes are not pleasant, they’re not toxic or hazardous either.
Auckland Council is confident everything is under control at the Glide Oil plant.
“We’re satisfied that Glide Oil is taking reasonable steps to investigate and remediate the issue,” council’s manager of environmental monitoring, Robert Laulala, told the Times. “We will continue monitoring the site and expect to be notified before operations recommence.”
Glide Oil’s John Knox says this type of plant has been successful overseas, but the company has faced challenges during its early operations in New Zealand.
“These plants have been around a long time and operate reliably and safely. They are well proven, but we have had our challenges as we’ve been getting it up and running,” he says. “We’re working to make a closed-circuit system so that stuff [the fumes] never sees the light of day again.”
One issue involved the plant’s thermal oxidiser, which has been designed to destroy foul-smelling gas. The source of the problem, Knox confirms, appears to be linked to a burner installed to meet New Zealand certification requirements. The modified burner setup caused some odorous compounds to bypass the flame.
A second source of odour originated from the plant’s drainage system where certain by-products released a sulphur-like stink.
Knox hopes to have the plant back up and running as soon as possible, however he confirmed it would remain closed until experts are confident that no more unpleasant smells will be wafting through Pukekohe again.
“We value our licence to operate in the community, so we want to make sure we’re doing so in a harmonious way,” Knox says.
Originally operating as WPC, the facility has collected and processed waste oil in Pukekohe since 1984.
Following a recent rebrand, Glide developed the plant further to recycle waste oil into reusable lubricant base oil rather than it being burnt as low-grade fuel.
The plant began operating in its latest capacity approximately two months ago, Knox explains.
“We’re basically repurposing the whole business that recycles a lot of waste oil, so we can recover everything that’s in the waste oil stream and repurpose it,” he says.
“It comes in to us a dirty black colour [from across the North Island] and when we’re done with it, it’s a beautiful, clear product ready to go back into automotive lubricant products.”
