Recycling Cooking Oil in London

July 2011: The Committee on Climate Change are currently undertaking a review of bioenergy and took a trip to have a look at the work of Uptown Oil who  collect used cooking oil from about a thousand sources in London – including Young’s pubs, Selfridges and Hackney Borough Council – to produce biodiesel.
A Business Green article published last week highlighted that Carluccio’s Restaurant chain – which has around 20 cafes in London – announced that it has signed a deal with biofuel firm Convert2Green to be converted into biofuel.  Other biofuel suppliers in London include:
Uptown Oil based in Borough
Pure Fuels based in Edmonton
Proper Oils who work with a  Croydon Council collection scheme
Uptown have also been selected to supply biofuel to PWC’s new HQ whose energy will be partially supplied by a trigeneration scheme (combined heat and power with cooling) – one of London’s only biofuelled CHP schemes.
Figures for the amount of cooking oil collected in London and be turned into biofuel do not appear to be available, however, a study reported on by the London Assembly in 2009 indicated that 37,000 tonnes of used cooking oil is available in London and the DfT’s latest biofuel statistics state that the “largest single feedstock for UK biofuel was used cooking oil (314m litres, 26% of total biofuel supplied)“. London’s Draft Waste Municipal Waste Strategy commits that the “Mayor will, through his Food to Fuel Alliance, aim to catalyse at least five exemplar food waste projects in London…the Alliance will support food waste projects that generate renewable heat and power (including transport fuel), and compost material for local use.”