by
Autonet Insurance
| May 17, 2011
A green fuel company is investing millions of pounds in technology that will see cornish pasties turned into biodiesel.
Greenergy is partnering recycling specialist Brocklesby to extract oil from high-fat food waste including pasties, pies and crisps.
Processed food products such as these contain up to 30% cooking oil and their waste would otherwise go to landfill or compost.
The company intends to blend the recovered and purified oil with diesel to create biofuel for sale at forecourts across the country.
Greenergy is developing facilities to process used oil at its plant in Immingham, Lincolnshire, at a cost of £50 million.
At the moment all remaining food solids are either dried or composted or turned into energy through anaerobic digestion.
But the company has future plans to convert them into solid biomass fuel pellets or briquettes, or extract bioethanol for fuel.
Chief executive Andrew Owens said: "We've always tried to find ways of reducing the environmental impact of our fuel and as oil prices continue to rise, it's obviously important to develop alternative sources of fuel.
"The quantities of biodiesel that we're currently producing from solid food waste are small, but we're expecting to scale up so that this soon becomes a significant proportion of our biodiesel.
"It's great to be taking these products, which would otherwise have gone to landfill or compost, and turning them into a new source of fuel."
© Press Association 2011