Don’t Give Away Your Operating Cashflow to the “Meter Scheme”

What’s the “Meter Scheme?”

There is a company making the rounds offering to install and operate a distillation system at your site, free of charge, reclaiming your spent process solvent for your own reuse, reducing your operating cost. You save your capital and they take care of the distillation process. Their equipment becomes your solvent meter and you pay a contract price per gallon processed. This is why it’s called a meter scheme. According to their marketing material, your associated solvent related costs are cut 20 to 35%. Sounds like a pretty good deal, does it not?

Wait a minute! Only 20-35% savings? In most instances buying your own distillation system will reduce your solvent related cost by 80 to 90%, usually enough to pay for the capital equipment purchase and installation in a matter of months. After the return on investment has been realized, your solvent recycler will become a cash flow generator.  This is the fundamental difference between owning your own solvent recycler, and simply lowering operational costs with a “meter scheme.” See the money cloud in the chart? The meter company is skimming your profit stream right off the top of their recovery rate.

Why would you give that profit stream away?

Even if you do not want to lay out the total amount of capital needed for an outright purchase of a recovery system, commercial capital leases are available with three to five year terms.  With a lease you would get the benefit of reclaiming your waste solvent at an 80-90% rate and the monthly lease payment would be less than the monthly rate of the solvent meter scheme mentioned above.  And, with a $1 end of lease buyout option, you would own the system outright once the lease terms have been fulfilled.

The solvent meter idea sound pretty slick, until you look at all the facts.  If you would like to get the information needed to make an informed decision about recycling your solvent waste stream please contact us here at PRI.  We will work with you to discover the best means of controlling your solvent related costs without giving away a big chunk of your operating budget.  Contact us today.