Earth savers, unite!
I noticed that the drainage in our neighborhood was clogged up so I started going around and observing the source, and trying to come up with solutions. I did this by talking with our subdivision’s maintenance team. I also thought of asking our household help about how they dispose of our wastes, most particularly the cooking oil we use in the kitchen. I just learned that my cook has been throwing our used oil in our neighborhood drainage in the streets as she said it is what everybody does. Horrors! I told her she should put it in a container so we may dispose of it safely. But then again, I realized perhaps we could do more than just leave it to be picked up by the garbage truck. So I asked a dear friend Akiko Thomson Guevara how I could get in touch with her husband Chips who has been in the business of transforming used cooking oil into gasoline for jeepneys.
I asked him if he could give me guidelines that households can apply so that we may safely dispose of our used oil and put it to good use because that would really benefit not only our environment but all our health as well.
Chips advised me to please set the oil aside. Since my house is very far from his office, it does not make it economical for him to pick it up from my house. But in larger volumes of around 1,000 liters worth at least, he will make the effort to go out to my house. He told me it means getting my neighbors organized. Chips reminded me of the benefits this will give to our community, such as preventing the clogging of our neighborhood sewers and using our used oil as a renewable fuel that will help slow down global warming, the cause of super typhoons. He even made me picture a simple scenario wherein getting organized means having a collection point and that if we rally our household help to collect the used oils, they can be bought at P5/liter. That could be an income-generating and earth-saving endeavor!
Chips reminded me that he would rather do that than give it to the garbage collector because the garbage collector might resell it to God-knows-who, and then it might end up in our food again.
I learned that Chips got into the business because of his dad. According to him, “When my dad retired, he became a full-time Google searcher, trying to look for new business ideas. He came across SVO (straight vegetable oil), which allows diesel engines to run on pure vegetable oil or WVO (waste vegetable oil). I was very skeptical about the technology at first, but he wanted to pursue the business. So we went to the US to purchase a conversion kit from MA, installed it in an old Benz, and it worked! I studied it, and reverse engineered it, and was able to figure out the computations that went behind the designs. But I was not happy with the American design because it was too expensive and inefficient. By process of iteration, I kept modifying the designs little by little and came up with my own design. Before I knew it, my own SVO kit was very different from the original American design, so I filed a patent for it.”
Chips chose to target using his veggie oil for jeepneys. He thinks that it can help improve the image of the jeepney as this Philippine icon of public transportation has such a bad reputation as one of the biggest contributors to air pollution.
Guevarra’s marketing plan then started to take on an environmental and social advocacy: In his words, he believes that by converting our jeepneys to run on WVO, we can curb air pollution, reduce our dependence on imported petroleum, help jeepney drivers do away with volatile pump prices, and help stop global warming. WVO fuel is a renewable source of energy and therefore it is what we call a carbon-neutral fuel. This means it does not contribute carbon emissions.
Chips admits that financially, it has been a struggle for his business, though he says that most entrepreneurs would say that things always don’t go according to plan. One of the things he assumed incorrectly was that he could just come into the market and buy up all the used cooking oil. Gueverra underestimated the capacity of competing buyers to out-price him. He cannot afford what the current buyers of used cooking oil are paying so the business remains small and unprofitable.
Chips tells us how these oils are re-used: “Many fast food companies, restaurants, and canteens resell their used cooking oil to traders or animal feed companies. The traders sometimes recycle the oil by bleaching it to make it look new, and then repack it in plastic bags and gin bottles, and sell in the public markets as new cooking oil. This is not hard to find out. Just look behind the stall that is selling the cooking oil and you will see the stacks of old tins behind it. Other traders resell it to chicharon, hopia and fish cracker manufacturers. This is actually very easy to trace. When you see a pedicab or a jeepney stacked up with tins of used cooking oil, just ask them where they are going to use it, and they will tell you.”
Aside from it being carcinogenic, what other diseases can it give us? How do we know that we are eating food made from new oil?
Chips reveals: “I have studies done by food institutes and universities in Europe showing the mutagenic properties of cooking oils with prolonged exposure to high temperatures, which is what used cooking oil is. Experiments done on lab rats show ill effects on heart disease and deformed babies. Many food establishments treat used cooking oil as income-generating trash, so they store it together with the trash. Because of this practice, I oftentimes find dead rats, cockcroaches, and flies in the oil. I cannot tell you exactly what kind of diseases can be derived from using this oil in our food, but it cannot be hygenic.”
How do we start this oil campaign in our neighborhood? What neigborhoods here in the country have applied it and how has this benefited them?
Chips replies, “An oil collection campaign needs to be quite organized, and incentives to collect need to be in place. In an affluent residential area, the residents may already have that mindset of saving the environment and avoiding a public health hazard, and will collect oil willingly. But oftentimes, a monetary incentive works. For example, in Brgy. San Lorenzo in Makati, the barangay organized a monthly Baratilyo where junk collectors set up buying stations to buy all sorts of junk. Brgy San Lorenzo is an affluent residential area, but the people who do the actual collection are the household help. They earn from collecting junk and used cooking oil from the houses they work in. They bring it to the Baratilyo and sell it there. Then they get to earn extra income.”
For inquiries, visit www.veggieoilcar.com.ph or call Chips Guevara, president, Alterenergy Systems Inc., telephone numbers 491-4855 and 377-4496; text 09178103245; fax 325-0112; e-mail “mailto:alterenergy.systems@gmail. com”alterenergy.systems@gmail.com.
