12th April 2010
Posted in Updates

The BYU–Hawaii Newsroom has posted a new story about the cooperation between the University, the Polynesian Cultural Center, Hawaii Reserves, Inc. and other local restaurants to collect waste vegetable oil and process it into biodisel for HRI’s equipment.

About two years ago, Richard Tolleson and Dan Clark conducted a test to convert waste fry oil to biodiesel. As a result, HRI made a small investment in a processor and now powers all 18 of the company’s trucks, tractors and diesel engine equipment on biodiesel—a clean, safe, and ready-to-use alternative fuel. The source for the new fuel is found in the kitchens of the BYU–Hawaii cafeteria, Polynesian Cultural Center and other local restaurants. Vegetable oil that was used to fry chicken, pork, and french fries (called “waste vegetable oil”), is collected at a rate of several hundred gallons a month and converted to biodeisel. The small refining processor, according to Tolleson, “functions just like a washing machine.” Over the course of two-day process, the vegetable oil is mixed with a cayalyst to separate the glycerin through a chemical reaction that produces 100 gallons of biodiesel at a time.

According to the news story, BYU–Hawaii Food Services also has worked with the University’s Department of Biochemistry and Physical Sciences to find a way to use an additional 20 gallons of byproduct waste material. The distillation process that produced glycerol was modified with a few more steps—adding a scent and an antibacterial agent. The outcome is a high grade hand soap. This hand soap has been approved by the Hawaii Health Department and is currently used in Food Services. The main advantage here is that the hand soap costs less than 1/5 the current retail price. With the resulting quantity, this is now a marketable product. Thus, the waste material that was normally sent to a landfill has now become useful fuel and a marketable product, and the resulting quantity available for hand soap provides the largest potential financial return of this whole process.

BYU–Hawaii, the PCC, HRI and the community continue to develop, both independently and together through the Envision Lā‘ie process, new ideas to help create a more sustainable community.