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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

There are many factors.  Has to do with the area you are in, for one thing. 
*Most* companies in our area have to pay a company to haul away waste oils.

What you are talking about 35 years ago doesn't apply to the here and now. 
The companies that contracted to pick up the waste oils when you worked at 
BK were the same folks who picked up waste products at our butcher shop. 
That business has just about died.  Those products were used in soap making, 
etc.  AND, that contract at BK came with a price tag to BK.  They had to pay 
that company to haul away their waste oils.

The company who hauls away the waste oils at your Captain D's is also 
charging a price to pick up the oils.  They are double-dipping.  It has 
become quite common place.  At least two relatively local companies have 
waited out their current contracts and are now selling their waste oils to 
private individuals for a very cheap price.

Almost all resturants already use some type of filtering system.  They've 
been doing that for decades.  The fancy system you are talking about costs a 
bucket of money.  The lone mom & pop fast food joint can't afford to put in 
the thousands and thousands of dollars necessary for that type of system.

PLUS, contrary to popular mythology, you can't reuse oil indefinately.  Oil 
breaks down and is no longer good for using for *cooking* oil.  The taste 
changes as does the fry color.  Stuff becomes browner and browner in shorter 
periods of time.  Fryman, Hefferman and all the rest only *guarantee* to 
extend the life of the cooking oil by 50%.  You still have to replace the 
oil.  Anyone saying otherwise is telling tall tales.  Those systems don't 
work anymore than those systems they used to sell for cars where it was 
going to miraculously make it so you never had to buy new oil.

Does the biodiesel work work, yes.  Does it work to get it local.  Sure it 
does in some cases.  In lots of cases.  May not work in *your* area but it 
does for a whole bunch of folks.

We know you don't like the concept and don't believe in the concept.  We get 
that.  However, that doesn't negate the fact that it works for quite a few 
people.  There are now hundreds of co-ops that have been set up and that is 
who is buying up the waste oil more than any other entity.

Plus, generally speaking, the folks who do the WVO biodiesel are folks who 
are into conserving.  They aren't folks out there driving for the heck of 
it.  Seems to me, it would be a concept embrassed by true homesteaders. 
Those folks are generally into conserving.

Lynda

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> There is not enough WVO in existence ot replace one hundred thousandths of
> the Diesel fuel used.
>
> Waste companies are already in the act and have been for some time.  I 
> worked
> at a Burger King thirty-five years ago and even then all the used oil and
> grease were spoken for.  A rendering company had contracts with most fast 
> food
> chains and came around on a regular basis and picked up all the discarded 
> fats.
>
> Someone I know runs a local fast food fish place (Captain D's, I don't 
> know
> how widespread they are).  They generate about twenty gallons of waste oil 
> a
> week and the food services company from whom they buy the oil picks up the 
> spent
> oil in the same containers as part of their contract.
>
> One fellow I know bought that Greasecar conversion kit for his diesel car 
> and
> THEN approached the snak food producer in town sure that they would have
> thousands of gallons of WVO and be begging him to haul it away.  They gave 
> him a
> tour of the facility and showed him that they indeed had NO waste oil. 
> The
> oil was run though an elaborate filtration system and returned to the 
> fryers. It
> was never changed and simply eventually left the facility in the potato 
> chips.
>
> My guess is that restaurant with gallons and gallons of discarded oil and 
> the
> manager who is so grateful that you are willing to haul it off for him is
> largely a myth.  Sure, there are examples here and there of people 
> actually
> running vehicles from discarded restaurant oils but those are isolated 
> curiosities.
> My business endeavors generate buckets full of hardwood scraps.  So when 
> we
> grill something on the hibachi, those scraps are the fuel.  But scraps 
> from
> woodshops will never be a factor in overall cooking fuel.  Same with 
> restaurant
> oil, thinks I.
>
>
>
>   </HTML>
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