“Think.
Eat. Save: Reduce Your Footprint”
Theme of World
Environment Day celebrated on Thursday June 5th 2013
Thursday
June 5th 2013 was celebrated globally as World Environment Day.This
was announced by Yendi
Phillipps, host of Television Jamaica
Smile Jamaica Programme on the very same day. Sheer luck that yet again another
media personality says something that blogworthy as was the case with the start
of the Hurricane Season declared by Neville Bell in my blog article
entitled “Neville
Bell Hurricane Barbara the first for Atlantic and Pacific Hurricane Season
starting Saturday June 1 2012 - Caribbean theatre for the Class of Hurricanes
in Monsters University”.
This
day is usually set aside like Labour Day, to do something for the Environment,
whether it was simply by avoiding burning fossil fuel by walking, riding a
bicycle or engaging in a project that would solve and environmental problem as per the article “What
are you doing to help create a better environment?”,
published Wednesday, June 05, 2013 by Karena Bennett, The Jamaica Observer.
Saving
the Coral Reefs is a global effort as reported in “Reef
Worlds to the rescue”, published Wednesday, May 29, 2013, The Jamaica Observer
that is one example of a worthwhile project. This is definitely ongoing as
Jamaica is still the convener of the International Seabed Authority.
Biodiversity
and the ability for various fauna and flora to coexist with human development
is key to our long term survival as stated in “Celebrating
biodiversity”, published Wednesday, May 22, 2013, The Jamaica Observer.
To
this end, Lead Researcher on the Project Dr Michael Coley of the Department of
Chemistry in the Faculty of Science and Technology, at the University of the
West Indies and a NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) YCWJ (Youth Crime Watch
Jamaica), have decided to team up to help tackle the problem of the recycling
and reuse of Waste
Cooking Oil. This has also been mentioned by the host Yendi
Phillipps, host of Television
Jamaica's Smile Jamaica Programme, making me suspect this idea's got her backing in some way
They’ve done this by
helping persons from several so-called
Ghetto Communities to collect and convert it into Bio-Diesel
as mentioned in the article “From
cooking oil to biodiesel,” published Wednesday, June 05,
2013 BY KIMONE
THOMPSON Associate editor, The Jamaica Observer.
The
idea for the project, which came up during discussions among interested
individuals attending UWI’s summer courses on Alternative Energy. This projects’
on the same level as the joint EU (European Union) funded Project undertaken
jointly with UTECH (University of Technology) and the Ministry of Science,
Technology Energy and Mining to develop Hydrogen Gas as a replacement for LPG
Cooking Gas as explained in my blog
article entitled “UTECH
partners with GOJ and UWI to develope Hydrogen Cooking Gas Cylinders - EU
Funded 3 Year Project is Chasing Mavericks to push Jamaica into the
Hydrogen-Electron Economy”.
Resource
Mobilization co-ordinator for the Faculty of Science and Technology Dr
Julie-Ann Grant explained the genesis of the idea, quote: “UWI has, for a
number of years, done a course in alternative energy... One of the features of
that course was Bio-Diesel Production, and we found that the public was
particularly interested. So, because of that interest generated, we submitted
it as a project to the Small Grants Programme with YCWJ as lead, and because
UWI and YCWJ have had collaboration over the years, we thought it was a really
nice fit. We provide technical support and they engage the community”.
The
resulting collaboration between UWI and YCWJ garnered a US$50,000 grant from the Global
Environment Facility Small Grants Programme and is expected to run for 1 year
and six months (18 months) albeit this project has a lifetime of benefits. The
Communities and School involving members of the so-called Ghetto Communities
include:
1. Arnett Gardens
2. August Town
3. McIntyre Villas
4. Nannyville
5. Tivoli Gardens
6. Trench Town
Schools in these communities are
also involved; most likely the Source of the Waste Cooking Oil to be recycled
in this project as well as to impress upon young minds the importance of
Recycling Waste Cooking Oil:
1. Calabar Primary and junior high
schools
2. Cockburn Gardens High School
3. Holy Family and St Michael's primary
4. Maverly High School
5. Melrose High School
6. Norman Gardens High School
Waste Cooking Oil is
Organic and degrades when thrown away, but it clogs sinks and creates a problem
in Soil due to its slow decomposition rates. With no State sanctioned reason to
collect Bio-Diesel, other than its use by the NSWMA (National Solid Waste
Management Authority) to recycle it to reduce the cost of operating the agency
as stated in “Biodiesel
provides savings for NSWMA”, Published Friday October 29,
2010, The Jamaica Gleaner, there’s no large scale GOJ (Government of
Jamaica) drive to recycle Waste
Cooking Oil.
Lead
Researcher on the Project Dr Michael Coley explains it best, quote: “It is difficult to dispose of used Waste Cooking Oil.
There are many restaurants, for example, which generate five gallons of waste
oil on a weekly basis. The challenge is, if they put that bottle of waste oil
in a garbage truck, once it compresses the bottle will burst and the oil will
seep out and eventually affect the brakes of the vehicle; so, even on campus
it's a challenge for our garbage trucks: They do not take up waste oil”.
Folks
that’s a lot of Waste
Cooking Oil! Some stats on the success of the project thus far
are in order:
1. 400 gallons of Waste Cooking Oil has
been collected
2. 80% conversion rate of Waste Cooking
Oil into Bio-Diesel
3. 34 eateries on the university campus
as well as in Papine, Liguanea, and parts of Half-Way-Tree, produce on average
1,000 gallons of Waste Cooking Oil monthly
Best of all there are advantages to recycling Waste Cooking Oil for Diesel Vehicles, the main type of Oil Biodiesel replaces:
1. Burns
cleaner without damaging the Cylinders
2. Reduces
the Suphur Dioxide buildup inside the engine as it has a lower sulphur content
than the Petrojam refinery
3. Can
be mixed with regular Diesel and used without any Engine Modification as in the
case of Auto LPG
Again
Dr. Coley, my former Lecturer in Chemistry, explains the process in his own
words, quote: “We measure the free fatty acid content, which gives us an idea
of the extent to which the oil has been broken down. The more you use cooking
oil for frying for example, the darker the colour tends to get, which is an
indication that the oil is gradually breaking down. We prefer oil which, when
we assess it, has less than five per cent free fatty acids, which means it is
not very dark and will not require a large amount of chemicals or time to
convert to biodiesel.”
Dr.
Coley continues on, quote: “Next, what we do is remove moisture and
particulates, essentially strain the oil, and then we carry out the actual
chemical conversion. What we get at that stage is crude biodiesel which we
clean up, meaning we remove any un-reacted components and then dry to make it
suitable for fuel use. So, in essence, at end of process what we have is fuel
grade biodiesel”
This
is possible because when Waste Cooking Oil is converted to Bio-Diesel, most of
the moisture and Burnt Oil that blackened. Thus summarizing what Dr. Coley
explained above, the Waste Cooking Oil is purified via a combination of:
1. Gentle
Heating in a Vacuum Chamber to remove water
2. Straining
using a Cloth Sieve to remove large particles in the Waste Cooking Oil
3. Centrifugation
so as to separate layers of dissolved liquids and solids from the Waste Coking
Oil into fractions separable via Decanting
In
essence, this is basically getting back the Waste Cooking Oil in its original
state before it was used for cooking. It would seem best to use Pure Coking Oil
Straight from the Bottle, but the need of vehicles such as trucks for Diesel
would outstrip its use in the kitchen.
Thereby making any project to use arable land to grow
Bio-Fuel Crops such as Castor Oil as note in “Jamaica
looks at Castor Oil as a Biofuel”, Monday, 14 February
2011 09:05 Written by Jamaica
Information Service impractical. Ditto too any FDI (Foreign
Direct Investment) in using land to produce ethanol from Sorghum, as that
land’ll be needed for Food Production soon as noted in my blog
article entitled “Russians
see potential in Ethanol Fuel Plant in Jamaica – From Russia With Love for
sorghum”.
Thus
post-recovery of Waste Cooking Oil is an ironic twist, as all those High
Schools and Fast Food eateries generate enough Waste Cooking Oil to run the
fleets of several Fast Food and Schools Buses, thereby making their operations
Carbon Neutral. For this reason, the National Continental Bakery has been
piloting a project to process Waste Cooking Oil into Bio-Diesel as noted in “Running
on Greens”, Published Sunday March 4, 2012 by Christopher
Serju, Sunday Gleaner Writer, The
Jamaica Gleaner.
Thus
UWI and YCWJ is set on a road of sustainability as not only is there a huge
demand for Recycling Waste Cooking Oil, but they may end up teaming up with a
Private Sector Company that’s already doing the same thing. Eventually it may
catch the eye of the GOJ, who may expand it to a National Program for its fleet
of Diesel Vehicles and the General Motoring Public thus making National
Bio-Diesel Production from Waste Cooking Oil Insidious: Chapter 2
(2013).
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