Turning Cooking Oil Into Fuel for the County

VATS of grease may make health advocates cringe, but Westchester County officials see excess cooking oil from the county’s 3,500 restaurants as a means of cleaner, cheaper fuel.

With seven vehicles that run solely on fuel made from cooking oil and 125 vehicles that run on a mix of cooking oil and diesel fuel, the county has begun a program to take excess oil off local restaurateurs’ hands free to use it as an alternative energy source.

At a news conference on Tuesday to announce the program, Andrew J. Spano, the county executive, hailed the program as part of the county’s continuing effort to cut costs while reducing emissions that harm the environment.

For every 10,000 gallons of cooking oil collected, the county could save about $25,000 in diesel fuel costs, Mr. Spano said. It could also provide savings to restaurant owners, many of whom rely on private disposal services to haul away frying oil that cannot be reused, he said.

“This is a product that restaurants would normally have to pay to take away,” Mr. Spano said.

More important, the program will aid the county in its continued push to reduce its impact on the environment, officials said.

Joseph D. Simoncini, who oversees the county’s fleet of 3,800 vehicles, as well as its equipment that runs on gasoline or diesel, said the yearlong experiment of mixing vegetable oil with diesel to fuel vehicles had been so successful that there is room to expand the effort to another 350 vehicles.

It cost $4,500 to retrofit each of the seven vehicles that run solely on vegetable oil — two educational and training vehicles, including the Veggie Van; three trucks; and two tractors — Mr. Simoncini said. However, running vehicles on a mix of vegetable oil and diesel costs very little, he said.

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