The recycling of used cooking oil has increased by a ‘record’ 107 per cent in Wiltshire following a three-month campaign aimed at raising awareness of the local oil recycling service and discouraging residents from pouring oil down drains.

Run by eco-firm Living Fuels and local recycling contractor Hills Waste Solutions between January and March 2013, the Wiltshire campaign donated 25 pence to the Wilshire Air Ambulance charity for every litre of used cooking oil donated.

As part of the campaign, oil disposal tanks were placed at each of Wiltshire’s 11 household recycling centres for local residents to deposit their oil collections. Once the tanks were filled, the oil was sent to Living Fuels’ facility in Hockwold cum Wilton, Norfolk, where it underwent ‘natural gravitational settling’ before being filtered into a bioliquid called LF100.

This is then used at combined heat and power facilities owned by sister company, Living Power, to provide ‘carbon neutral’ energy to the National Grid at times of ‘unexpected power demand’.

According to Living Fuels, one litre of oil can provide enough energy to make 240 cups of tea, whilst a full tank can power an average home for a whole year.

107 per cent increase in oil recycling

As a result of the campaign, a total of 5,200 litres of cooking oil was collected – an 107 per cent increase on the same period the year before – raising a total of £1,300 for the air ambulance service.

Established in 1990, the Wiltshire Air Ambulance is the only one in the UK that can fly at night and costs over £700,000 a year to mantain (a figure which is reportedly set to rise to £2.4 million by the end of 2014).

Caroline Corrigan, Head of Fundraising for Wiltshire Air Ambulance stated: “We were really pleased to be the nominated charity for this brilliant idea to recycle and raise funds. I had no idea the impact of disposing oil incorrectly and hope this campaign helps to limit damage to our drains in the future.”

(Left to right) Paramedic Ross Culligan, Cliff Carter recycling manager at Hills Waste Solutions, Rob Murphy operations director at Living Fuels and paramedic Richard Millar

According to Living Fuels, 75 per cent of the 200,000 drain clearance call-outs that happen every year can be attributed to cooking oil blockages, costing an average £15 million to clean up.

Response has been ‘incredible’

Speaking of the collection drive, Cliff Carter, Recycling Manager for Hills Waste Solutions, said: “The response to this campaign has been incredible with the amount of used cooking oil brought to us for recycling rising to 5,200 litres over the 3 month campaign compared to the on average 2,000 litres we would usually expect to collect.”

Similarly, Rob Murphy, Operations Director of Living Fuels, said: “We are absolutely delighted with the effort residents have made in recycling their used cooking oil. Not only are they supporting an absolutely fantastic charity, they are helping to reduce the UK’s reliance on fossil derived fuels and therefore lowering the country’s carbon footprint.”

Living Fuels has been running similar oil collection schemes across the UK, with residents from West Sussex to Hampshire taking part.

Efforts to deal with the increasing amounts of oil blocking drainage systems in the UK include Thames Water's 20-year deal with green utility company 2OC to send waste oil collected from London’s drains to ‘the world’s largest fat-fuelled power station’ in Beckton, East London. The collected oil will provide ‘at least half of the fuel’ needed to power the facility, which will create enough renewable electricity to power 39,000 homes a year.

Read more about cooking oil recycling.