San Franicisco area restaurants hear a lot about being greener, from the cities and nonprofs like Thimmaka. Has anyone considered getting them to ask all restaurants hoping to be certified green to be put on a list of restaurants waiting to be approached? Or do progressive cities already make good use of that wvo?

(If someone wants to volunteer/intern to make this a reality, SpaceShare would be willing to host the project & provide webspace and so on.)

I also like the idea of selling VO to the restaurants. Say here's the deal. Buy a nice, high quality organic, non-hydrogenated oil and I will include a funnel stand/metal cubee collection combo for you to empty the fryers into, and I will even collect the used oil.

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen at SpaceShare:
San Franicisco area restaurants hear a lot about being greener, from the cities and nonprofs like Thimmaka. Has anyone considered getting them to ask all restaurants hoping to be certified green to be put on a list of restaurants waiting to be approached? Or do progressive cities already make good use of that wvo?

(If someone wants to volunteer/intern to make this a reality, SpaceShare would be willing to host the project & provide webspace and so on.)

(Thimmaka runs a program called 'Greening Ethnic Restaurants' which does very successful energy efficiency/recycling counceling of ethnic restaurants, usually saving them money AND getting them more publicity for improving various practices)

Thimmaka is aware of us homebrewers, but has had bad experiences with people wanting to work with them but then flaking on their committments. My info is not current though. I think they were a little leery as a result, last time I spoke with them a couple of years ago.

Mark

assorted restaurant "oil type" stuff

People have had decent response from restaurants if they a. save them money b. provide them with cubee funnel thingie (I think Craig Reece of Neoteric uses this approach) and c. explain that you can't use hydrogenated oil (even though that's probably not true of most of us). The Fuelmeister people basically suggest telling restaurants that you can only use liquid oils (so they sort of understand that fats, sludge, or whatever, is 'bad'- easy enough concept to grasp for a busy business owner).

I also had an easy time convincing one restaurant to switch from barrels to cubees, when they had rats jump into their old rendering barrel and stink up the whole lot. They were REALLY happy to hear that we could get them a funnel and set them up for cubees after that.

At one point last year when soy prices were high, it was actually cheaper for restaurants here in teh Bay Area to switch to liquid canola than to use hydrogenated shortening (rumor has it, anyway- one guy convinced his restaurants thus at the time)

Mark

Girl Mark ,
Is there a known design for a cubee funnel that is easy to use and inexpensive ? Or is this just something each person has to work out on their own ? I have one place that would give me the oil in the cubees , but is cautious of most funnel ideas . Any ideas are appreciated .
Shannon

I thought about a small bar sink mounted on legs (ie with the legs riveted or welded on) but it's probably messy- most of them have rubberized coating on the outside which would be hard for a restaurant to put through the extremely high heat of a dishwasher (I think).

There are various funnels for sale at usplastic.com and plastic suppliers like that, they're not cheap, but they're large-capacity.


Mark

I was thinking of somthing like a 1 gallon steel funnel with a frame it could sit into made of pvc pipe fittings . That way you could just put the cubee under the frame and pour in the wvo . But this idea is still flawed in the fact that the funnel will drip oil onto the floor when changing from cubee to another . I might consider this plan with a valve on the bottom of the funnel .

I'm new to Biodiesel and I have been reading this discussion. I have a question that will help me get up to speed with you all. What is a Cubee? I know that it's a receptical for WVO gathering but is it a special design carton or what? Thanks

The cubee is the container that the restraunt buy thier oil in . They are 5 gallon square containers , usually a clear opaque color like a milk carton .

I am a newbie to these postings. I have just started trying to collect used WVO for the first goo on a newly manufactured processor unit.
I have been asking different restrauts about their used WVO. If it is still in the cubee, it will say the type of oil thats inside. I put a string tag with the name of resuraunt and date on the handle.
Question ? : What is the best type/kind of oil to get for BD manufacture , in order of #1, #2, #3 etc? (better, best, & good)?
Thanks