ALTERNATIVE FUELS * Brazil - Turning old oil into new mileage

The "catadores" have a less-expensive and environmentally friendly fuel option: recycled cooking oil

(Video from YouTube, by MITNewsOffice -17 Feb 2011: Students from MIT's Biodiesel team organizes the project, called Green Grease, and they traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil last summer to begin the implementation. Led by Libby McDonald, a fellow at the Community Innovators Lab in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, the team converted two large trucks to run directly on filtered vegetable oil, rather than converting the oil itself into biodiesel fuel)

Sao Paulo,SP,Brazil -MIT News Office (USA), by David L. Chandler -February 24, 2011:  --  The estimated half-million garbage pickers in Brazil, known as catadores, turn trash into gold: they sort out recyclable items in the country’s dumps, then sell their findings to recycling companies. But the process of getting the recyclables to their final destination involves fleets of fuel-consuming vehicles...  Now—with help from some MIT students—the catadores have a less-expensive and environmentally friendly fuel option: recycled cooking oil...  In summer 2010, members of MIT’s biodiesel team, along with a Media Lab student and one Brazilian MIT student, traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil, to begin work on the project, called Green Grease. They worked with Rede CataSampa, one of the many catadores cooperatives, to convert two of its large trucks to run directly on filtered vegetable oil...  The team, opted to convert the vehicles to use filtered oil—rather than converting the waste oil to biodiesel, as the team does at MIT—because the biodiesel conversion process requires relatively complex machinery and expensive, toxic chemicals...  By contrast, the oil-filtration process and vehicle conversions are simple and can make use of many recycled parts that the were able to find or improvise, explains junior Angela Hojnacki, president of the Biodiesel@MIT team and a member of the Green Grease team bringing the technology to Brazil...  Now that the truck drivers in one cooperative have been trained in how to carry out the vehicle conversions and set up filtration systems, the hope is that “they can convert it into a small business, converting other vehicles and providing the oil,” Hojnacki says, and thus helping to disseminate the technology. On a follow-up visit this year, the team plans to expand the project to five other Brazilian cities, with the help of the catadores they trained in Sao Paulo...