Earlier in the school year we drove around Highlands and Baytown, Texas in search of waste-vegetable-oil (WVO) that we could convert into biodiesel. Some of the biodiesel leadership group students came along to help convince local restaurants to give us their WVO. Unfortunately, we figured out quite quickly that even in small-town Texas, every restaurant is already in a contract with a large waste-oil rendering company that pays them around $.50/gal for their WVO. We were able to obtain a few samples of oil though and perform a few titrations (see picture below). Interestingly enough, none of the oil we obtained was very good so it was probably best that they didn’t offer us any.
First Titration
Because we had a lot of work ahead of us getting the biodiesel processing plant setup and running, we decided not to pursue getting free WVO any further. Instead, we found a local biodiesel brewer who provided us with unfiltered WVO at $.40/gal. He obtained his oil from local Italian and Asian restaurants as well as community fish fries and had more oil than he could use. It seems that in today’s market where WVO is a commodity that is traded and indeed valuable enough that theives are beginning to steal it from restaurant collection bins, the best source of free or cheap WVO is from these types of temporary fryers (like community/church fish fries, little league concession stands, etc.). Next school year, we will pursue more local sources of WVO and do some better local canvassing/advertising.
It is strange just how many blogs the internet has on this subject. I’m glad I found the one that provides some helpful stuff.