City of Gadsden Alabama Partners with the Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts

 

Using a biodiesel reactor from Biodiesel Logic, Inc., an immediate solution to a sticky problem is being provided through a new partnership between the Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts and the City of Gadsden, Alabama.

The problem is that many communities such as Gadsden struggle with ways to dispose of used cooking oil. Larger restaurants can contract with a company to take off the used oil, but residents and smaller mom-and-pop operations tend to put it in the garbage or pour it down the drain.

The result can clog sewage systems and filling up the landfill with the mess.

The technology now exists to turn that used cooking oil into a biodiesel and several Alabama cities are already working on ways to recycle the oil through the city and use the ensuing biodiesel in their city and municipal vehicles.

The Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts is helping Gadsden set up residential collection points for home cooking oil to be easily collected.  Similar efforts are under way in other cities.

“The fleet guys are excited about it, but it is the water treatment folks are the most excited about it because they see the benefit of not having to dig up clogged sewer lines,” says Mark Hall, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System Renewable Energy specialist.  “It’s solving a real environmental problem for the city and giving local residents opportunities to participate in the solution.”