McBiofuel

biko

McDonald's announced that it will start using its own waste cooking oil to make biodiesel, which will be then used in its entire truck fleet of 155 vehicles. McDonald's has 1,200 restaurants in Britain, and Matthew Howe, senior vice president with McDonald's UK, told Reuters that the fast food chain just might be able to sell biodiesel to others because they'll likely have some excess. The biodiesel will be made from 85 percent McDonald's waste grease and 15 pure rapeseed (canola) oil. Once the biodiesel production process is refined, Howe said the virgin rapeseed element might be taken out.

About 20 trucks in the southern English town of Basingstoke started using biodiesel today, following a year-long B5 trial period. During this time, McDonald's converted 150,000 litres of used cooking oil to biodiesel. The whole truck fleet should be converted to biodiesel in about a year, which will mean 6.1 million liters of waste oil put to use on the roads. McDonald's claims the switch will save 1,675 tons of carbon each year. Yahoo! UK says the McDonald's trucks in Austria have been using biodiesel "for a few years." *

BendiBus

What used to be done with waste oil? Not just at McD's but in general?

biko

Don't know. Carted of somewhere and just burnt I guess.

maniac101

BendiBus wrote:

What used to be done with waste oil? Not just at McD's but in general?

Waste cooking oil from the catering industry was used for manufacture of animal feeds in the UK up to recently. However, new EU animal by-products regulations prohibit this practice. Now all cooking oil must be either used for production of biofuels or else burnt for the production of electricity. My view therefore is that McD's are not 'doing their bit for the environment' here, but are simply complying with the law while generating some positive press at the same time.

biko wrote:

The whole truck fleet should be converted to biodiesel in about a year, which will mean 6.1 million liters of waste oil put to use on the roads. McDonald's claims the switch will save 1,675 tons of carbon each year.

The amount of biofuels that can be created from waste oil is very limited. In this regard, it's not really an alternative fuel, as the alternative will be offered only to very few. (The same applies to all other first generation biofuels.) I think it's wrong for McD's to claim the carbon saving, as the saving is brought about by the regulations and not by the company.

Khannie

biko wrote:

Don't know. Carted of somewhere and just burnt I guess.

Not at all. Waste cooking oil is collected by companies in Ireland who use it for a variety of purposes (some of which is biofuel manufacture). I'm sure the same applies to the UK. Anything with that amount of chemical energy in it doesn't get wasted.

Good to see McDonalds doing this though. Thumbs up.

Nothing new there several people have been runing their vans on old fish-n-chip oil for years, I heard about some that did this in the 70's.

edit: I just remembered this