Green Grease

By Holli Haerr

For Thanksgiving, I thought I'd serve up a "Go Green" activity that could someday be as traditional as turkey and pumpkin pie: recycling turkey grease.

You may have seen stories on News 12 Long Island about bio-diesel cars and trucks that run on used cooking oil. In many cases, the owners of the vehicles get grease at local restaurants, which is a win-win situation. The car owner gets free fuel, and the restaurant doesn't have to pay anyone to get rid of the used cooking oil.

What about your cooking oil? Especially if you fry a turkey (yum), there will be a lot. Well, AltE Eco Energy Alternatives in Port Jeff Station would love to use your used grease. They're a company that converts cooking oil into fuel.

Scott Williams, the president of AltE, says recycling household cooking grease is already quite common in Europe and San Francisco. His company hopes to make it more common here on Long Island. (That's some of their equipment on the left.)

If you want to get rid of your cooking grease in an environmentally-friendly way, AltE will take it. Their first Thanksgiving grease collection site will be in the parking lot by a North Shore Chiropractic at 298 Canal Road in Port Jeff Station. Williams says they hope to expand to more locations in the future. For more information, you can check out their website, www.ecoenergyalt.com.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Comments

[John]

Is it my imagination, or are they asking for free raw materials for a product they're selling? If so, I'm starting a "money recycling" program...