Recycling vegetable oil to make bio-fuels
With the increasing emphasis on global warming and the environment, both consumers and corporations are becoming ever more committed and educated about environmental conservation and are taking positive steps. Consumers are recycling at home in ever greater numbers – transforming organic waste by composting in home composters, or recycling in council supplied recycling bins for larger scale processing. The benefits to this are a reduction in carbon emissions, reduced waste and valuable by-products for onward use.
Businesses and public sector bodies are compelled by law to follow certain environmental preservation rules and heavy penalties are in place for those organisations that don’t adhere to the rules. Waste products must be disposed of carefully and in accordance with the law to avoid pollution and there are targets around recycled products.
The good thing about recycling organic and food matter in particular is that there are clear routes into making useful products from it. Fruit and vegetable matter can be composted to produce soil rich in nutrients for more plants to grow. Even for restaurants and caterers that produce significant volumes of waste vegetable oils in the course of their business, there are opportunities for making a usable by-product from it, rather than disposing of the oil.
This bio-oil is becoming an industry in itself – and the biodiesel that results can be used as a petrol alternative to power machinery and even cars. Restaurants have the option of selling their used waste oils to recycling companies who will charge to collect and process the waste product from the catering companies. The oil and grease is then processed and re-sold on the market for a profit. It’s a perfect example as to how a waste product can become a useful and usable onward product and allow new businesses to exist and make a profit through recycling.
Producing biofuel or biodiesel at home however isn’t an easy business and consumers should be wary. There are very obvious and real dangers relating to any flammable products and toxic materials. To process waste grease into usable oil takes knowledge, intensive labour and carefully controlled environments. Storage is also a consideration and small scale providers will find that their production and storage costs may outweigh the fuel value that results.
However for consumers there are good opportunities to be had by converting car engines to take biofuels and some people have done this already, taking advantage of a growing recycling market. It’s important to weigh up the pros and cons and is likely to be less worthwhile or indeed possible for newer car models that are designed to use fuel efficiently – but for older gas guzzling cars, a converter kit could save useful sums and help to support the environment.
Specialist garages can carry out the conversion work and many filling stations now sell alternative fuels on the forecourt – check with local providers to find out more. Certainly over the next decade or so, we will be seeing far more of these type of schemes to re-use and recycle our waste products, as fossil fuel levels decrease and the need for environmental management becomes ever more critical.
Writer works for a waste management company in the UK specializing in Plastic Recycling.
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