The Transport and Technical Services department want to find facilities in the Island to turn waste cooking oil into biodiesel – an environmentally friendly fuel.
Currently all Jersey’s waste fat and oil, which the catering industry gets through at a rate of 40 tonnes and 220,000 litres per year, is shipped and sold to the UK.
It is then converted into biodiesel using a chemical process called transesterification and, providing it meets strict EU standards, can be used to run some cars.
But shipping the waste to the UK costs the States money and John Rive, recycling officer at the department, says that it may make more sense to produce it in the Island.
While he admits that biodiesel ‘is not the kind of fuel you would want to put in your Mercedes’ its use is expanding in the UK and America, and following more research into its refinement it could feasibly be used to run vehicles in the Island.
