Chip oil taxi plan to get more meals to the gallon (From The Argus)

Chip oil taxi plan to get more meals to the gallon

10:30pm Thursday 30th October 2008

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It is a well known seafront restaurant, popular with pub-goers and clubbers looking for a midnight feast.

But now customers at Buddies in Brighton might be fuelling their own taxi rides home – with the cooking oil their chips were fried in.

City Cabs and Buddies have forged a partnership with Brighton Biomatters to launch a new approach to green travel in the city.

More than a dozen cabs could soon be running on biofuel made from refined vegetable oil used in the restaurant.

Those behind the scheme say it will cut costs as well as helping to cut emissions and hit sustainability targets.

City Cabs, which is piloting the scheme, operates with 220 drivers in the area.

Michael Hildreth, operations manager at City Cabs, said: “I am delighted that City Cabs are part of this innovative scheme.

“While this is not going to wipe out our carbon emissions overnight, it is definitely a step in the right direction.

“With limited oil supplies, global warming and the rocketing cost of fuel, doing nothing is not an option.”

Buddies, in King’s Road, uses enough cooking oil during its busiest summer months to fill 15 tanks a week, after processing.

An estimated 70 million litres of waste cooking oil is disposed of in Britain every year. Brighton Biomatters, based in Church Road, Hove, specialises in refining vegetable oil that has been used in cooking and converting it into efficient, biodegradable and non-toxic biodiesel fuel.

All diesel vehicles can use the fuel without any modifications.

Penrose Tackie, from Brighton Biomatters, said: “We supply Buddies with its cooking oil, and once it is used we take it away and refine it into biodiesel.

“Then the taxi drivers will come and fill up from our base at Shoreham harbour.

“It’s not a complete solution to sustainability but we are proud that it can become part of the answer.

“We want to grow the scheme as much as possible to cater for everything from family cars up to taxi fleets and lorries.”

This year the “road transport fuel objective” came into force, which requires at least 2.5% of all road fuel to be from renewable resources. From 2010 the figure will increase to 5%.

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