Say what you want about McDonald’s (and folks around the world have plenty to say), at least they’re experimenting with environmental responsibility. In the UK, anyway.
The world’s largest fast food chain is currently undertaking two experiments. First, McDonald’s is finally doing what many companies have done–turning to biodiesel as an environmentally friendly fuel source. Sorry “grease car” enthusiasts, the burger peddlers won’t be capitalizing on their abundance of used fryer oil by using it to power their fleet. Still, McDonald’s UK has pledged to run all of its 155 delivery trucks on biodiesel by 2008, drastically cutting down on harmful emissions. 
Second, 11 McDonald’s in South Yorkshire are now experimenting with turning food waste to energy. Their refuse would power 130 buildings while preventing tons of food from being sent to the landfill.
While the article doesn’t come out and say it, this burgers to biogas scheme probably uses anaerobic digestion, the process of converting waste into methane and carbon dioxide that can be harnessed. Imagine if all of the 31,000 McDonald’s worldwide produced energy instead of 100 tons of landfill fodder. Wow.
3 Comments
You refer to Greasecar, but I think McDonalds are planning to use biodiesel, whereas Greasecar markets a conversion system to enable diesel cars to be run on straight vegetable oils (SVO), ie without esterification which makes biodiesel a straight substitute for diesel. In fact a number of firms have been running their diesel fleets on SVO for some years without reported problems – but you wouldn’t get them to admit that publicly because they would be in breach of their vehicles’ warranties.
All modern diesels can be run on biodiesel without further conversion, though vehicle manufacturers are for commercial reasons reluctant to admit this (Citroen now warrant new cars for 30% biodiesel). This gives a substantial reduction in most emissions (- 47% particulates, – 75% PAH compounds – see http://www.epa.gov/otaq/models,biodsl.htm). The extent to which it is carbon neutral depends on the source of the biodiesel.
Where it comes from recycled cooking oil, as in McDonalds’ case, it is effectively carbon neutral. Where its derived from oil crops the extent of the CO2 savings is disputed, and for some biodiesel produced from imported palm oil it may be argued that the environmental damage of the way it is grown outweighs the CO2 savings.
Its worth noting that a lot of used cooking oil currently goes down the sewers, where it has a significant impact on reducing the capacity of the system to cope with storm water, a factor in the pollution which accompanied this summer’s floods.
Like a lot of people, I run my diesel vehicle on a proportion of biodiesel. See Cambridge Biodiesel http://www.cambridgebiodiesel.co.uk/
A lot of waste food used to go to swill feeding pigs, until that was banned overnight in 2001, since when it has supposedly gone to landfill. As you say, imagine if all of this (including from McDonalds) went to produce energy instead…
We need to get our act together on AD in UK, as they have in Scandinavia and most of Northern Europe. But that’s another discussion…
Regards,
Peter Fane
(Eurinco, European policy consultants on renewable energy and rural development)
Yes, point taken, Peter. I jumped to the conclusion that they’d be converting their fleet to run on used vegetable oil (SVO) because I’ve been thinking about grease cars more these days. But I should have realized McDonald’s would never go to the trouble of converting their fleet to run on a resource they have on hand–it would make way too much sense.
Thanks for the correction and keep me up to speed on UK Anaerobic Digestion. We all need to get our act together on that front.
Note: I decided to change the original post to clarify Peter’s point and avoid future confusion. Thanks again, Peter.