Cooking oil to fuel Bristol bus The Chipper

The next time you buy fish and chips for tea, the oil they were cooked in could fuel your bus ride home.

The latest addition to First's bus fleet due to hit the road will be fuelled by biodiesel produced from waste cooking oil.

Branded "The Chipper", the single decker bus is part of a six-month trial to see if frying oil can be cost effective.

Southville-based company McKeown Bio Fuels will collect the waste oil from a number of businesses which are sponsoring the trial, including Bishopston Fish Bar in Gloucester Road, Teohs pan-Asian restaurants, and First's own canteen at the depot in Easton Road.

McKeown – the company that won the Evening Post's award for sustainable business last year – will then add chemicals and convert the oil into biodiesel.

The biodiesel is then used to fuel the bus, without the need to convert the vehicle.

The bus – a 1998 Dennis Dart – will run on the No.73 route, between the city centre and Cribbs Causeway, passing many of the businesses supporting the project along the way.

Anyone stuck in traffic behind the bus will be able to smell a faint aroma of chips from the vehicle exhaust. The bus also sports another first for First, a full colour route display on the front of the vehicle.

People can support the project directly by donating their own waste cooking oils at either of the city's household waste recycling centres.

John Bickerton, engineering project manager for First UK Bus, said: "As well as being a near carbon-neutral fuel source, biodiesel made from waste cooking oil can produce less carbon monoxide when it is burnt, so it is considered better for the environment than conventional diesel.

"During this project we'll be closely monitoring the emissions produced by The Chipper, examining them every 28 days.

"If it is shown that the vehicle produces less smoke as a result of running on biodiesel, that would be very good news."

At the end of the six-month trial the company will consider whether it is cost effective to roll out the fuel to the rest of its fleet.

The buses require about 600 litres of biodiesel to run every week.

The 100 per cent biodiesel bus is one of a package of green initiatives First has been looking at. Others include vehicles that automatically shut off after four minutes of being idle and environmentally friendly tyres.

Justin Davies, managing director of First in Bristol, said: "We welcome any opportunity to trial new or alternative technologies, particularly if in doing so we're able to reduce our own impact on the environment.

He added: "It will also be interesting to see what local bus users think of the trial."