Food Waste Reused as Biofuel

Several initiatives illustrate the potential of food waste as a biofuel source. In

addition to energy recovery, such re-use is an efficient way to manage
burdensome waste streams.
Waste cooking oil to fuel buses
After light processing, waste cooking oil can be used as fuel to power diesel engines. Several local
projects have been set up to collect used cooking oil from individuals and / or professionals and to use it
to fuel public transport. This strategy is all the more environmentally-friendly in that:

− It reduces the use of fossil fuels.

− It avoids the disposal of large quantities of oil, which are a burden for sewage systems due
to their physical properties.

• In Spain, the city of Valencia ran the ECOBUS project using LIFE funding.
On average, some 100 litres/month of waste domestic oil were collected.
By the end of the project, 800 commercial outlets had between them
collected some 800,000 litres of used cooking oil. The oil was stored and
sent to a transformation plant to produce an eco-diesel fuel mix for use on
the city's urban buses. During the project 322,654 litres of eco-diesel were
used to fuel the Valencia City fleet.

• In Austria, the city of Graz has had an ongoing

initiative since 1999. With the slogan “From the pan to
the tank”, waste oil is collected from 20% of the city's
gastronomy businesses. After transformation into
biodiesel, it is used to run 50% of the city’s bus fleet.
The project was also supported by LIFE, as part of the
SMILE project.

The Targets for Biofuel production in Europe

Use of materials of biological origin instead of fossil fuels to produce energy is one of the main
solutions for reducing fossil fuel CO2 emissions and thus for fighting climate change.
In the field of energy used for transportation purposes, in 2003 the European Union adopted the
Biofuels directive. This sets a benchmark value of 5.75% of energy for transport to come from
biofuels by 2010.
More recently, a still more ambitious target was adopted by the European Council in the context of
the Energy Package proposed by the European Commission. A 10% minimum target has been set
for the share of overall petrol and diesel consumption coming from biofuels in EU transport by 2020
– provided that such biofuel production is sustainable and that second-generation biofuels become
commercially available.

More: Browse the conclusions of the Council presidency here.

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First European plant to produce bioethanol from dairy industry waste
Whey or lactoserum is produced in large quantities in the cheese
making process: every 100 kg of milk will produce about 80–90
kg of liquid whey. Further processing of whey for food is possible
but costly, and sewage treatment is difficult due to its specific
organic composition. Reuse as energy provides a new method of
managing this burdensome waste stream.
In March 2007, a German dairy products group launched the
construction of a plant to produce bioethanol from whey. The
group invested € 20 million in the plant, which should be
operational by the end of 2007. When maximum capacity is
reached, the plant should product 10 million litres of ethanol per
year. Use of this quantity of ethanol would release energy
equivalent to about 5,079 tons of petrol (or 37,079 barrels), and
save approximately 15,450 tons of fossil carbon emissions.

Biofuels production from waste animal fat

A French society specialised in the treatment of by-products from the meat industry and fisheries will
build a plant to produce biodiesel from animal fat. This € 20 million investment should create 20 to 25
jobs. The plant should be operational in 2008. It will have the capacity to produce 50,000 tons of
biodiesel. The technology is already used in the German parent company whose pick-up fleet is mainly
fuelled on biofuel produced from processed waste.

Sources:

• LIFE ECOBUS in Valencia (project LIFE02 ENV/E/000253)

− Brochure Life Energy http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/infoproducts/energy/energy_lr.pdf
− Project’s website http://www.ecobus.net/
− Project’s layman’s report on the project’s LIFE webpage
− LIFE web site home page http://ec.europa.eu/life
− Information about all LIFE projects http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/project/index.htm
− Information about similar LIFE projects
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/project/thematicdocuments/energy_trans.pdf

• From the pan to the tank in Graz

http://www.managenergy.net/products/R633.htm

• First plant to transform whey into biofuel

http://biopact.com/2007/04/german-dairy-products-group-to-make.html

• French plant to produce biofuel from waste animal fat

http://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/page_article.cfm?idoc=98511&nrub=188 (French)

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