Did you know that your fries are a link to green energy? It’s a win-win for biodiesel and the restaurant industry – Hartford Courant

When you order fried chicken and onion rings at a restaurant, you’re doing more than indulging in fried food. You also become a link in the chain of cleansing energy.

Years ago, used cooking oil was considered hazardous waste. By law, restaurants must dispose of it safely, so they paid companies to take it away — until the industry realized that plant-based or animal-based oils could be turned into biodiesel — a green energy source.

Today, restaurants sell their used oil. They only get a fraction of what they pay for it, but for restaurants struggling to make even a small profit, trading a monthly expense for a mini-revenue stream makes sense.

“We don’t make a lot of money from it. Maybe in the big, deep-frying restaurants, with the volume, they might see a few hundred dollars a month,” said Dave Borselle, co-owner of the Little Oak Cafe in Canton. “But I feel good about it. It’s good for the environment.”

Max Restaurant Group, with seven locations in Connecticut and several outside the state, is one of the largest restaurant entities. Hunter Morgan, a Max’s partner and the group’s culinary director, said the Max’s team is pleased with the arrangement.

Morgan said Max now pays about $1.24 to $1.41 for a pound of oil. About half of the oil is lost in cooking and filtering. Used oil is purchased by their distributor, RTI, for about 34 cents per pound. Because oil is a commodity, the price fluctuates.

“It’s still a better situation. It’s small, but it’s something. The most important thing is that they get the oil,” Morgan said.

Demand for biodiesel increased in July, when a state law went into effect requiring all home heating oil to be blended with biodiesel. With the implementation of Public Act 21-181, home heating oil must contain 5% biodiesel. That requirement will increase to 50% in 2035.

Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, said the new law complements the Global Warming Solutions Act, which the state passed in 2008.

“That work requires reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by the year 2050,” said Herb. “In our region, the majority of states have such goals. Most of the rest of the country, except for a dozen or so states, have some sort of greenhouse gas reduction goals.”

Paul Winters, director of public affairs and federal communications at Clean Fuels Alliance America, said the market for biodiesel has grown significantly and continues to grow each year.

“The market was 400 million gallons in 2010, and now it’s 3.2 billion gallons,” Winters said.

Used cooking oil is not the only ingredient in biodiesel, and home heating is not its only use. Paul F. Teta, executive general counsel of Kolmar Americas, parent company of biodiesel producer American GreenFuels of New Haven, said the company’s primary markets are home heating and on-road diesel fuel. Buffalo Biodiesel, based in Tonawanda, New York, which has many clients in Connecticut, said its oils go to aviation fuel manufacturers.

Used cooking oil can also be used to make animal feed, compost, health and beauty products and various household cleaning and maintenance solutions.

Biodiesel is the main use for used cooking oil, because it reduces the dependence on toxic fossil fuels in the environment.

“Feedstock,” or source material, for biodiesel includes soybeans; canola, corn and other vegetable oils; rendered animal fat; winter oilseed cover crops; used cooking oil; and other biomasses, said Teta.

Biodiesel is produced “by the chemical reaction of selected vegetable oils, plant oils or other waste products with alcohol, producing fatty acid esters,” said Teta. “This process is known as transesterification.”

Soybeans are probably the main ingredient in biodiesel, said Herb.

“US soybeans practically feed the world. This is a rare plant. About 20% of soybeans are oil. For years, farmers in the Midwest didn’t know what to do with it. They put them in landfills. It contaminates water supplies,” Herb said. “Then they realized that the excess oil could be turned into a diesel fuel.”

The restaurant industry’s share, though small, is significant, Herb said.

“Companies that buy used cooking oil from restaurants tell me that these restaurants are happy to sell the oil,” he said. “It creates a link between small farmers in the Midwest and family-owned restaurants in the Northeast. They sell it to small fuel retailers to heat homes.

Restaurant owners and managers remember the days before used oil was sold.

Fred Marcantonio, owner of Sliders restaurants in Plainville, Berlin, Southington, Wallingford and Middletown, said “keeping things is almost like a trash thing.”

“You just open the top and pour. Or you put it in barrels, and they take the barrels,” Marcantonio said. “Always leaking. You have to make sure it’s not hot.”

Companies that purchase oil have installed storage and collection systems to make the process safe and efficient, creating fewer restaurant oil spills and the resulting damages, less burns due to physical contact with hot oil, smoother and less. poor disposal and collection methods. Oil levels are monitored electronically by collection companies.

“They would come and put big tanks in the basement of our restaurants or wherever. There was a clean tank, containing hundreds of pounds of oil. And there is a dirty tank,” said Morgan. “Every time the oil goes bad you open a valve and the oil goes to the other tank. … You’re not dealing with hot oil and things like that. It’s dangerous when it leaks. “

But not all restaurants sell used oil, Herb said. Some of the remote areas that can’t get the trucks to go out where they are they still have to pay people to get their oil.

Hunter said Max Downtown and Trumbull Kitchen have construction that makes installing vats “almost impossible.”

“It’s old school, using a company to pick it up, filter it and clean it and take it to the landfill,” Hunter said. “There are not as many men as there used to be. It’s harder to find people who do it that way.”

There is a shortage of collection vats whose entry portals are outside. In a backhanded recognition of used cooking oil increasing in value, the jars are increasingly becoming a target for thieves.

Tim Adams, owner of J. Timothy’s in Plainville — which uses a lot of oil in its wildly popular double-fried chicken wings — said his used oil cans have been broken into “about 30 times.”

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“The vans have bombs in the back. They flip it in your tank, suck it dry, and then boom, they’re back on the highway,” Adams said. “They are rarely caught. But if they are caught, someone will replace them. They take it and sell it on the black market.

Borselle, of the Little Oak Cafe, also said his oil vats were broken into.

Buffalo Biodiesel CEO Sumit Majumdar said his company is trying to raise awareness of oil theft by working with law enforcement, to make people aware of the worsening problem.

“We’ve been pushing Connecticut for a few years. We’re running into a barrier with these crimes,” Majumdar said.

Majumdar said that Buffalo Biodiesel uses various methods to protect its clients from thieves, but the thieves have come up with ways to beat them all. Buffalo Biodiesel continues to test new ways to secure the oil so it gets to the right place. “We have multiple layers of security,” he said.

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.