Rochester Students Want Cafeteria Leftovers To Go Green

July 14th, 2009

Think about your average college cafeteria and the tons of waste it produces each year — whether in terms of leftover food, waste products, or cooking oil. While some students may accept it as the status quo, a small group of students from the University of Rochester in New York decided to at least put all that excess cooking oil to good use with a green initiative dubbed UR Biodiesel.

David Borrelli, Dan Fink, and Eric Weissmann are the students behind the UR Biodiesel project, which is now responsible for the school’s only biodiesel bus. Running on 80 percent diesel fuel, the bus relies upon the students’ very own UR Biodiesel lab to convert the remaining 20 percent of biodiesel fuel from vegetable oil. As to why there aren’t more biodiesel buses, the answer may surprise you: the cafeteria simply doesn’t produce enough leftover oil to run more than one at the moment.

To add to the green nature of this program, the students report that many of the tools and materials used to create the biodiesel converter were repurposed from various items across the campus.

Said Weismann, “This initiative is good in terms of the green movement. Even the bus will serve as a billboard for the university’s commitment to sustainability.”

For more on UR Biodiesel, you can check out the project’s home on the Web, www.urbiodiesel.com, or Inside Higher Ed’s article about this initiative and others like it.

– Genevieve M. Blaber

>> Photo courtesy of the UR Biodiesel Blog

Entry Filed under: College Trends, News