BELCHERTOWN, Mass. – Reduce, reuse and recycle auto parts. It's a process Westover Auto Salvage says they have been following for 30 years with the goal of making the salvage industry better for the environment.

What You Need To Know

  • Reduce, reuse, and recycle auto parts is a process Westover Auto Salvage says they have been following for 30 years, with the goal of making the salvage industry better for the environment

  • The Belchertown salvage yard will depollute vehicles from insurance auctions, tow lots and people who are getting rid of a vehicle

  • The fuel tanks are taken out of them, all the fuel and fluids are drained, all the fluids are drained and systems dismantled

  • The yard itself will hold between 1,000 to 1,500 cars; some are crushed at the end of the process and some cars are sold

Owner Brian Bachand said the Belchertown salvage yard will depollute vehicles from insurance auctions, tow lots and people who are getting rid of a vehicle.

"The vehicle itself is depolluted before it goes back in the storage area," said Brian. "When I say depolluted, that means all the fuel tanks are taken out of them, all the fuel is drained from the vehicles, all the fluids are drained from the vehicle, the oils, the windshield washer fluids, different transmission fluids. The exhaust system is completely dismantled."

Bachand said the yard itself will hold between 1,000 to 1,500 cars at anytime. Some are crushed at the end of the process, and some cars are sold.

He said the yard will store and reuse used fluids to make the process more environmentally friendly.

"Burning all our waste oil," he said. "Reusing our fuel and our yard cars that we drive around the lot, as well as filtering it and using our delivery vehicles, and then even filtering the anti-freeze and windshield washer fluid, which we can actually rebottle, repurpose and resell to the public."

Co-owner and father Paul Bachand said the business will ship their used parts across the Commonwealth, as well as out of state to places like Rhode Island and Connecticut.

He said he wants to change the perception of what auto work can do to the environment.

"We want to be ahead of the game," Paul Bachand said. "We want to get rid of the junkyard image. We don't like that word junkyard. I know what a junkyard is. I worked in junkyards. But if you look around, there's no cars flip over, we don't pile cars, stack cars. We dismantle."

Paul Bachand said it's important for salvage yards to be a greener community and has even gone as far as installing solar at his businesses.  

"I already have solar on my building," he said. "In the yard here, we have them coming in we have canopy, so basically it's going to cover cars and it's going to be solar."