- Comparisons
Why a Solvent Distillation Service Saves You More Money
Industry expert Dave Roey discusses why partnering with a solvent recycling service is the most successful way to save money and recycle your waste long term.
- Dave Roey
- September 15, 2020
Table of Contents
A Solvent Distillation Unit vs a Solvent Distillation Service
CleanPlanet has been manufacturing batch and continuous operating solvent distillation units since the mid 1990’s. While our business was successful, selling more than 10,000 recycling units over a period of 20 years, something was missing. Despite compelling economic and environmental reasons to do so, many companies were not recovering their waste solvent and those that did often didn’t stick with it. It wasn’t enough to just sell a solvent distillation unit, we had to provide a solvent distillation service.
What is the difference? A solvent distillation unit is simply a machine which recycles waste solvents using centuries old processes and modern safety technology. The end user typically owns a solvent distillation unit outright, operates and maintains it. The machine doesn’t generate revenue but can help save money by reducing solvent waste and new solvent purchases.
CleanPlanet’s solvent recycling service provides the user with our advanced solvent distillation units, installation and training, 24/7 monitoring, ongoing optimization, repair and maintenance, and real-time reporting are all included. The end user pays only for the clean usable solvent and not the machine. CleanPlanet calls this Service365.
The Saving You Money Scheme
Our goal has been to reinvent how the world recycles solvent and we firmly believe the only way to accomplish this is by partnering with our customers. We focus on recycling so you don’t have to. Others have described this as a “meter scheme”. The claim is that Service365 only affords minimal cost savings for the end user whereas full ownership garners cost savings as high as 90%.
What is the reality? OEM’s who provide solvent distillation units don’t factor in the long-term costs of ownership when calculating ROI’s for the prospective clients. It’s put forth as the end user makes a capital purchase, and can achieve full payback in 12-18 months, a fairly short period of time. The actuality is a cash drain when factoring in the end user’s total responsibility for ownership, operation, maintenance – daily maintenance, preventive maintenance, and emergency maintenance – and, in most cases, a lack of quality control. If the system is down there are no more cost savings. If the distillate is tinted then the operators are less likely to reuse the recycled solvent and opt for using only virgin solvent in the processes. The result is the many hours maintenance and technical personnel must spend fine-tuning and supporting the solvent distillation system when they could be focusing greater attention on the money-making aspects of the operation. Cash Drain.
We Manage Your Solvent Recycling Operation
The advantages of Service365 are many. The equipment operators are working with fully automated solvent recycling systems designed to automatically discharge the still bottoms. This relieves the operator from manually initiating the discharge cycle. As long as the solvent recovery system has dirty feed solvent, space to store the distillate and empty discharge containers, the operator is free to work in other areas of the operation. CleanPlanet monitors the system twenty-four hours a day every day of the week for continuous operation, peak performance and solvent generation. If there is an issue with the system, CleanPlanet is notifying the end user and working out all the ways to resolve the situation. Preventive and major emergency maintenance is performed by CleanPlanet to optimize the uptime of the system. CleanPlanet’s technology guarantees the quality of the distillate in such a manner that eliminates discolored solvent and allows for capture of most of the ingredients used in the solvent blend. This minimizes the amount of virgin solvent purchases, the need for maintenance personnel to dedicate time to the operation and frees up the operator to focus attention to areas of the operation which require it.
A Solvent Recycling Partner
If you want to be successful long term with your solvent recycling operation you need a partner. Both the headache and the cash drain of ownership are eliminated with CleanPlanet’s Service365. By eliminating capital costs, machine downtime, maintenance, and poor quality solvent the money you save is even greater. Does this sound like a “meter scheme?” to you?
Want to learn more about recycling your solvent with Service365?
Want to learn more about recycling your solvent with Service365?
