With the soaring cost of diesel (even with new oil being drilled for here in Belize, fuel prices are still going up!) you can rest assured that you'll always have an option. Right now, buying new vegetable oil (soybean) by the 55 gallon drum, you'll be paying (at the time of this writing) about $7-$8BZ a gallon in bulk quantities, compared to the pump price of about $9.00BZ.
We all know that diesel (& gas) prices will only keep going up, so when you purchase & install a BELIZEL kit, you are also buying piece of mind.
SVO (straight Vegetable Oil) can be bought from Reimers Feed in Spanish Lookout, Madisco, Verena's & Belize Mills in Belize City. If you look in Belize City, Orange Walk & Corozol, & near the border towns, VO is even cheaper in quantity.
Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) can be gathered for free (most of the time!) from local restaurants when they empty their fryers. You can help improve the quality of the food here in Belize by making sure the restaurants are changing their oil on a regular basis! Plus help save the environment. Cohune nuts right now are very inexpensive, so setting up your own press (or even better, collect them from your own yard/bush) makes sense. Also coconut oil works very well & widely available.
If you have access to a friendly restaurant that empties it's fryers on a regular basis, you can ask for this oil & (usually) get it for free! All you need to do is to filter out the gunk, like French Fries, silt & fried chicken parts, & dewater it. This can be done once a month in just a few hours with very little effort on your part, & then it can be used in our BELIZEL tank. I have never been refused nor charged to gather this WVO here in Belize.
You also can grow locally & press your own fuel! If you have lots of coconuts, cohune nuts, peanuts, sunflowers, corn, soy beans jatropha, corn or avocados, then you can press your own fuel using a simple press made out of a car jack.
Oils & Fats you can use in your BELIZEL tank once they have been properly filtered include:
Coconut Oil, Cohune Nut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Avocado Oil, Soybean Oil, Peanut Oil, Corn Oil, Vegetable Oil, Jatropha, Malunggay, Hemp, Bacon grease, Chicken fat (& other animal fats including pork, deer, gibnut, beef, possum) etc.
How to Collect used Vegetable Oil from Restaurants:
The most important & critical thing you will have to deal with is the oil gathering
&
straining, pre-filtering & filtering process. There are several rules to
remember about gathering the oil, & when done properly, it will make your life
easier. If done improperly, it will lead only to major headaches & possibly costly repairs
for your vehicle.
The restaurants with the better
foods usually have the better oil, since they tend to change it more frequently.
Places that cater mainly to tourists will also have better waste oil than some
smaller local places that cater mainly to locals.
Some never throw it out, & just use it all up & simply add more! I've been told "Why we do that? We just add more!". Yikes! I'm not
going to eat there any more!
When you look into the container it should look dark, & be liquid. If it is
white & creamy, walk away. If the bucket has been left outside with no cover,
walk away as it contains lots of water. Clarity of the oil is more important than color.
Some oils are clear but dark. Look at a sample of the oil in a clear container &
see if you can see through it. If you can, it is good stuff. If you
can't, keep looking.
All oil will settle out given time. How much time depends on how dirty the oil
is. The bad stuff
like
free water, dirt, & small
rodents will settle out to the bottom. No matter how good the oil is on top,
there is bound to be some junk on the bottom. So always pump from the top &
watch for that settling line as you go down. When you find it, stop pumping &
leave that last few inches. It’s the last few inches that will clog a filter
prematurely. If you pour from a bucket, then watch for this line & you'll see when it gets silty,
it's time to stop pouring for fuel & throw that last bit away.
Good oil contains no water, no bacteria & very little solid matter.
The longer your fuel filter lasts, the better your source & pre-filtration system is. The average source & pre-filtration system should get you about two-five thousand miles out of your fuel filter. With better filtering on your part (down to 2 microns) you'll get a lot more. I've gone more than 10,000 miles before changing my WVO filter in my vehicle when I properly clean & dewater my oil BEFORE I put it into my BELIZEL tank. As a habit, I change my SVO filters in my vehicle when I change my regular motor oil filter, which is about every 3000 miles. Also keep in mind newer vehicles require cleaner SVO than the older, simpler ones. What might work in an 1984 VW Rabbit may clog the fuel filter & make a newer (& more complex) vehicle run rough.
Educate your Restaurant:
You will probably need to educate the places where you gather your oil as to how to store it for you. Since most have been just dumping it out on the ground, they don't underst& our needs. Bring a plastic bucket (or 55 gallon drum with a tight, locking lid) with a tight sealing lid with your name painted on it. Tell them you'll be happy to haul away their waste oil for free, but it must be keep out of the weather, & most importantly kept dry. Make a regular routine for your pickups (i.e every Thursday or once a month) & keep coming around & politely asking. When they see you are serious & showing up every week or two, changing their oil will be more on their mind than before. Try to get there when they empty the fryer & you'll then know for sure that the oil is as clean & dry as possible.
If you get a bucket of bad oil, tell them that you can't use it that way, & offer suggestions as to how they can keep it cleaner. I sometimes supply an aluminum window screen that fits on top of the bucket so they can pour it hot from the fryer thru it & into the bucket. Always make sure the lid fits tight! If the restaurant says they don't keep the oil around for long since it smells bad, that's an indicator that their oil is very dirty with lots of food particulates & who knows what else is left in it. It can be used, it'll just take a lot of cleaning & filtering it to make it useable.
It's important that you establish a good relationship with the restaurant. Don't make any dem&s & always be polite. They won't empty the fryer when they are busy, so ask when they usually do empty it & go there around that time. Order a meal of fried food & see if it tastes good. The restaurant will appreciate that if you have to wait.
& remind the restaurant that the food always tastes better when they change their oil on a regular basis!