.F
Diners’ waste fuels b s e s
By Cheryl A. McMullen
Whether Greater Cincinnati
residents dined downtown at the
five-star Maisonette restaurant
or a t a local fast food joint this
summer, they likely helped reduce a& emissions in the region.
Public buses in Greater
Cincinnati ran
on biodiesel
fuel this summer, thanks to
two $50,000
grants from
Geise
the Department of Transportation’s Congestion MitigatiodAir Quality program.
Griffin Industries Inc., a
northern Kentucky-based rendering company, won a federal
contract to recycle used cooking
oil from local restaurants to fuel
public buses from the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority’s Cincinnati Metro and
the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky.
“This is fairly new domestically, but biodiesel has been
used in Europe for a t least a
decade,” Griffin spokesman
Rick Geise said. Europeans are
more eager to use biodiesel because they’re used to paying
higher prices for fuel, he said.
“The Gulf War showed us it’s
important to reduce dependence on oil,” Geise said.
Biodiesel is a clean substitute. Approximately 155 Metro
buses and all of TANK’S 133
buses used the alternative fuel,
CHERYL A. McMULLEN
PORKOPOLIS TRANSIT: Cincinnati’s public transportation system has cut
emissions by fueling buses with diesel fuel blended with used restaurant
cooking oil. In the foreground, near a city bus, is one of the city’s many
statues of pigs that commemorate Cincinnati’s status as the world’s
largest pork-packing center in the 1800s.
which blended 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent regular
diesel, Metro spokeswoman
Sallie Hilvers said.
Cincinnati residents took notice of the program, which ended
Sept. 30. No one seemed to mind
that bus emissions smelled like
french fries. “People think it’s a
riot,” Hilvers said.
Residents are pleased to
know the oil that cooked their
fries one week fueled the crosstown bus the next.
Though cooking oil is more
expensive than diesel, it burns
cleaner with fewer emissions. It
is biodegradable and requires
no engine modification o r special fueling facilities like other
alternative fuels, Geise said.
Griffin will analyze the emissions savings, and Metro will
evaluate future use of biodiesel
in its fleet, Hilver said.
The use of biodiesel as an alternative fuel is increasing,
Geise said. State and federal
agencies across the country are
fueling their fleets with some
biodiesel. Griffin is among the
companies that reprocess cooking oil and other items, including bakery scraps, into fuel
and other useful products such
as feedstock.
WASTE
NEWS,October 9,2000