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Scotland: New scheme trades cooking oil for bus fare discounts
Passengers on a Stagecoach bus route in Scotland will be the first in the UK to benefit from fare discounts in exchange for their used cooking oil, cutting carbon emissions by 82%
A town south west of Glasgow will be the first in the UK to launch a green transport initiative that will allow travellers to exchange used cooking oil for cheap fares. The Bio-Bus project being introduced in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, by one of UK?s leading bus companies Stagecoach will run eight buses on 100% biodiesel. The biodiesel will be manufactured from used cooking oil that passengers will be able to trade in, in exchange for reduced fares. The environmentally friendly fuel is expected to cut CO2 emissions by up to 82%.
"It is particularly important that the project is using bio fuel from wholly recycled material and not from a source competing with food production," says Scotland?s Secretary of state and Kilmarnock MP Des Browne. Many concerns about environmental damage and competition with food supplies have in fact arisen with other biodiesel feedstocks, such as palm oil, soybeans, and rapeseed.
All households on Stagecoache's Service 1 bus route, which carries some 15,500 passengers per week, will be given a container to collect their used cooking oil. Customers can then take the oil to a local recycling plant to receive vouchers for discounted bus travel.
?This innovative project is a great opportunity for our customers to play their part in saving the planet by recycling household products that would otherwise go to waste,? said Brian Souter, Stagecoach group chief executive. ?I?m sure the idea of cheaper travel in exchange for the used contents of your chip pan will capture people?s imagination.?
The ?Bio-buses? have dual fuel tanks with a capacity for 184 liters of biodiesel and 40 liters of mineral (standard) diesel. To start up in the morning, the buses will run on mineral diesel for about 10 minutes until the engine reaches a normal operating temperature. After that time, the system automatically switches over to biodiesel. By running on alternative fuels, the vehicles will save 960 tons of carbon emissions per year, according to Stagecoach.
More info:
www.stagecoachbus.com
