Every time I go to an auto parts store – any auto parts store, there’s always some bozo pouring nasty stuff into his car, and tossing the container out in the parking lot.  Sometimes there are people with oil leaks, putting in oil, and half of it goes straight onto the pavement.  Therefore, it was not a surprise, when the state of California accused Auto Zone of up to 5 million hazardous waste violations, and it didn’t surprise me when Auto Zone agreed to pay $11 million in a consent decree.   From the TTAC.com article above:

From the California Attorney General’s Office:

District Attorneys’ offices throughout California conducted 56 inspections of dumpster bins at 49 separate AutoZone facilities. These investigations found numerous instances of unlawful disposal of hazardous waste including batteries, aerosol cans, electronic devices, and hundreds of discarded bottles and other receptacles containing automotive fluids and other regulated hazardous waste. These investigative efforts revealed that AutoZone allowed its customers to deposit hazardous automotive fluids and other waste items into regular trash containers in AutoZone stores’ parking lots throughout California. AutoZone facilities in 45 counties in California were found by the prosecuting offices to have committed these environmental violations. It is estimated that AutoZone illegally disposed of over five million hazardous waste items in California.
AutoZone also violated laws protecting vulnerable confidential consumer information by unlawfully disposing of customer records without having rendered personal information unreadable.

 The company is getting off easy.

The thing is, Auto Zone isn’t necessarily better or worse in this respect than any other auto parts store all over the country.  The whole industry deserves more scrutiny. General retailers selling automotive and household chemicals need more scrutiny as well. I personally believe that there is a law saying every company that sells motor oil must accept used motor-oil for recycling in the same quantity they sell.  Maybe the same should go for other chemicals as well.