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| Solaqua has a commitment towards using renewable energies to promote a sustainable future. We are aware that vegetable oil is a readily available renewable energy, which can be found in restaurant fryers all over the world. Also, there is no known comprehensive waste vegetable oil recycling program in the Capital Region of New York. With these two thoughts in mind, the idea for the waste vegetable oil recycling program began to take shape. If we were to collect and recycle this waste into filtered straight vegetable oil, we would be accomplishing several things beneficial to the environment: lessening our dependence on fossil fuels; consequently lowering greenhouse emissions; and lowering the amount of vegetable oil that is discarded into landfills. An additional benefit is that the waste removal cost for restaurants is alleviated, where before they had to pay a service to pick up their oil. We do it for free. Taking a second to look at all the benefits of this project, we began to wonder why nothing like this was done before, and realized it was up to us to begin a project that recycles this “waste” and puts it back into the energy stream as a renewable energy. |
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An initial look at this project reveals many benefits, both for the environment and for restaurants; clearly a reason to want to engage in a project of this nature. With the prices of fossil fuels fluctuating but climbing nonetheless, we decided now was the time to demonstrate that there are existing fuels that can replace the high-priced ones we currently depend on. With a little ingenuity, we are able to collect, filter and store oil at a relatively low cost. Since we are collecting the oil for free, the only costs of this program lies in the infrastructure. Ultimately, once we start burning the oil in our boilers and generators, we hope to demonstrate that vegetable oil is a cost-effective, renewable source of energy that not only provides economic incentives for us, but also engages local communities in renewable energy efforts. |
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