When I was a little girl growing up in an industrial city in England, my mum (like all mums I knew then) would deep-fry delicious "chips" for dinner. Think steak fries with a mouth-watering crispy shell and unbelievably fluffy potato filling. Just don't think about the fat. One of the (many) problems with this way of cooking was the issue of oil disposal. Not wanting to clog drains or send vats of fat down the city pipelines, my mom would pour the oil into an old coffee can and let it solidify before throwing it away.
Yeah... pretty disgusting. I'm glad we have evolved in our cooking habits.
But the oil from french fries is not a thing of the past (just look inside any diner's kitchen), and two Wisconsin entrepreneurs have looked at the disposal problem with an eye to the future... they are recycling it as biofuel.
The Appleton Post-Crescent recently profiled John Harrod and Robert Osowski of Mosinee, and their $7,500 processor. According to the newspaper, the processor "cleans water, bread crumbs, soap, glycerin and other contaminants from the used grease and turns it into fuel that can power diesel car engines, tractors, generators and heaters."
The company that grew out of this one idea is named U.S. Freedom Bio Fuels, and you can read more about it here.
~ Liz
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