Veggie Oil Vacation

By Megan McLaughlin

Spring is just around the corner and although it seems a light year away, warmer weather is on the way. Its time to start planning that spring/summer road trip you’ve always wanted to take, but the tough part is figuring out how you’re going to afford it. Many people are turning to alternative solutions for travel, but these folks have turned to alternative solutions for oil!

Kopali Organics, “a mission-driven company, founded to bring you the most purely delicious, naturally nourishing and healthful food, produced in the most fair, compassionate and sustainable ways possible,” recently began an eco bus tour. They have traveled through North and South America on busses converted to run on used vegetable oil. According to their website, they “took these buses, running on fuel coming right from kitchen fryers, to meet with farmers, ministers of Agriculture, scientists, activists, political and business leaders, and members of the press.”

Since Kopali Organics and others have caught onto this concept, some students and other curious people have begun to try it out as well. Jillian Deegan and Scott Karduck, students of Penn State University, located in Pennsylvania, converted a truck and drove across the country this past summer. You can read more about their adventure here, but basically, Karduck converted a Dodge Ram 2500 to run on used vegetable oil.

According to the article by Pamela Batson, Deegan stated, “our liquid gold, took us almost 11,000 miles, and it was worth it.” It may take a lot of effort to convert a vehicle and then wade through garbage to obtain your oil, but according to those who have tried, the hard work pays off and you save some money during the process!