[Sustainable-biodiesel] Biodiesel born from holiday oil

[Rachel Burton]

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007711220355
  	

City sets up used holiday oil collection site at Riverside recycling  
location
BY HALLIE WOODS
HallieWoods at coloradoan.com

In addition to making great soups and sandwiches, Thanksgiving  
leftovers will help power cars this year.

A statewide holiday recycling event will collect leftover holiday  
cooking oil from frying turkeys and other foods and donate it to  
Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises of Boulder, where it will be  
turned into biodiesel.

	
Fort Collins will join other cities like Arvada, Aurora, Boulder,  
Broomfield, Denver, Evergreen, Longmont and Loveland to provide a  
collection site. Local oil will be collected at 1702 Riverside Ave.,  
the city's drop-off recycling site.

"It's about waste diversion," said Susie Gordon, senior environmental  
planner for the city's natural resources department. "We really want  
to find a secondary use for any and all materials."

Anyone can drop off cooking oil free of charge from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  
at the site Saturday, keeping the gooey substance out of the landfill  
and the wastewater system.

Cooking oil poured down the drain can cause household drain system  
clogs and even citywide sewer system backups.

"The city has crews out continually checking the lines, and (they)  
look for those type of situations," said Ron Russell, technical  
services supervisor for the city's water reclamation division. "The  
grease will collect on the walls of the pipes and restrict the flow  
of the pipes, close sewer lines."

Russell recommends putting solidified oil in the trash, where it will  
go to the landfill.

But solid waste departments don't want to see the grease either.

"Sometimes the liquid bursts in trash compacters and leaks all over  
the streets," said Bruce Philbrick, superintendent of solid waste in  
Loveland. "Liquid wastes aren't suitable for landfill anyway."

For more than a year, the Loveland recycling site has offered a year- 
round cooking oil drop-off site, which is donated to Rocky Mountain  
Sustainable Enterprises.

"We have been getting some months over 100 gallons of oil," Philbrick  
said.

Gordon said if the day goes well, Fort Collins may start a  
conversation about creating a year-round drop-off site like Loveland.

But because the current recycling drop-off center on Riverside behind  
Rivendell School is not staffed, it would make it difficult to set up  
liquid collection, she added.

"We would have to think long and hard about how we would set it up,"  
Gordon said. "Any time you are dealing with a liquid like this you  
have to have a cleanup and spill response plan."

Philbrick said the barrels are kept in spill-proof areas at the  
supervised Loveland recycling drop-off center where spill plans are  
in place.