Cooking oil to run rubbish fleet

The council has announced a fleet of vegetable-oil run vans

A fleet of recycling collection vans in a Dorset town are planned to be run on vegetable oil.

The scheme follows the success of converting one of Poole Borough Council's rubbish vans to run on the industrial cooking oil last summer.

Councillors have put a second oil-run truck on the streets this week and now plan to convert a further three of the vans to run on the bio fuel.

The mass-produced waste vegetable oil would usually be incinerated.

The council heralded their first van, which starts on diesel but changes automatically to bio fuel when the engine has warmed up, as the first of its kind in the UK, when it was launched in August.

Cheaper fuel

Councillor Don Collier said: "We pride ourselves on our efforts to be an environmentally-friendly authority.

"Pure vegetable oil offers great advantages over bio-diesel for commercial vehicles.

"It is a cleaner, more eco-friendly fuel and has far less impact on the environment than conventional diesel fuel.

"Not only is vegetable oil a cheaper fuel to buy, it is also created from a renewable source and produces lower emission levels - making it much better for the environment."