Following the announcement that the department for food and rural affairs (DEFRA) are to review the way that small waste oil burning heaters (SWOBs) are classified, motoring bodies have lined up to slam the practice which will effectively render the heaters obsolete.
The RMI’s Stuart James “Independent garages across the UK rely on SWOBs as a consistent way of heating their garages as well as disposing of their waste oil. If SWOBs were banned, already cash strapped garages could see a rise in their utility bills of an average of £5000. They would also have to arrange and pay for the professional removal and transport of the waste oil.
“The RMI are currently in talks with Defra on the subject to ensure that they are fully aware of all the facts on this subject before any final decision is made. We are ensuring that our member’s best interests are represented and will continue to do so in the coming weeks.”
Dave Garret of the Garage Equipment Association continued “At the moment, businesses using SWOBs burn their waste oil locally, however, if SWOBs are no longer an option then the waste oil would need to be stored until there was a large enough quantity and then collected by a disposal company. The problem here is that it’s a reasonable argument that collecting the waste is more damaging to the environment than burning it locally; this is due to the fact that the disposal company will need to send a tanker to the town or village and return etc, thus extra Co2 emissions will be produced by the tanker. Once the waste oil is at the disposal company it will be incinerated using a carbon fuel, thus even more Co2 is created.