The leftover cooking oil from those fried Oreos and Twinkies at the Alachua County Fair last week will likely end up fueling a truck or electrical generator.
As part of the Alachua County’s waste vegetable oil recycling program, county officials collected about 200 gallons of oil from the fair, said John J. Mousa, county pollution prevention manager.
Under Florida law, food vendors are required to properly dispose their oil after use. After officials collect the oil, they mix it with methanol and a catalyst, which creates biodiesel, Mousa said.
Stephen White, chief executive officer of Event Marketing Corporation, the company that runs the fair, said the fair industry has always looked for a place to get rid of vegetable and motor oils.
“[Alachua] County has been very progressive here,” he said.
The county became interested in biodiesel after students from Oak Hall School contacted officials for help on a recycling project. It pursued the project on a larger scale in 2010 but had to stop in December because of complications with state tax laws and biodiesel production. In July, the county came up with a solution with state legislators and was able to restart production.
Since the program began, Mousa said the county has collected enough vegetable oil to produce about 3,000 gallons of biodiesel. Instead of ending up as sewage spills in local creeks, Mousa said the energy in the oil is being put to better use.
“The worst thing you can do is pour it down the sink,” he said.
A version of this story ran on page 1 on 10/29/2013 under the headline "Cooking oil from Alachua County fair to be recycled as biodiesel"
