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Green School’s Bio Bus
Recycled
cooking oil powers eco-friendly buses in Bali
,
Green School in Bali has
three bio buses fueled entirely by used cooking oil, and are already blazing a
trail on the popular Indonesian island. Green School’s graduating students
initiated the idea in 2015, driven by the challenge to cut carbon emissions and
green the island’s transportation system. As an added bonus, glycerin, the
by-product of this recycling process, is turned into soap.
Our
Better World
What if you started
your car and smelt fried chicken?
In Bali, this is a
mouth-watering reality for driver Made Gusta, one of the pioneers of Green School’s Bio Bus project.
The school has three
bio buses fueled entirely by used cooking oil, and are already blazing a trail
on the popular Indonesian island.
“The
moment I started the bus, I smelt a whiff of fried chicken,”
he recalls. “I yelled, ‘Who is eating in the bus?’”
Laughing
he says, “It was the first time I believed that this bus could run on
cooking oil.”
Green School’s
graduating students initiated the idea in 2015, driven by the challenge to cut
carbon emissions and green the island’s transportation system.
Where better to start
their bio bus journey than at the school itself.
Parents
were having to drop their kids off every day, and were chalking up a
significant carbon footprint travelling to and from the school.
First, the students
had to find a source that would produce the biofuel.
The answer lay in used
cooking oil.
Sofi
Le Berre, a team member of the Green School Bio Bus, says used cooking oil, “impacts
people’s health and the environment in a negative way.”
While
Made reveals, “Oil that is being reused, multiple times, is being sold off
again. And many people who are irresponsible, they clean it with formalin, or
chemicals, such as pool cleaning agents.”
Green School students
were quick off the mark with a solution.
They approached hotels
and restaurants to educate kitchen staff and owners about the dangers of used
cooking oil.
And encouraged the
businesses to donate the oil.
After which, this
would be sent to local non-government organisation Yayasan Lengis Hijau,
who works closely with students to transform the used cooking oil into
biodiesel.
As an added bonus,
glycerin, the by-product of this recycling process, is not wasted. Instead, it
is turned into soap.
The long-term dream is
to change the way Bali moves, by getting all drivers to switch to biodiesel.
Green School has
already set up Bali’s first public biodiesel fuel station.
Now all that is needed
to help move Bali’s green revolution forward is for more drivers to fill their
tanks with biodiesel.
Says
a very optimistic Made, “Everyone definitely wants a more progressive Bali,
but also one that stays beautiful and healthy.”
Bio
Bus began as a student project at
Green School in Bali, Indonesia, and has evolved into a social enterprise that
continues to be steered by students and local partners. It operates buses that
run on biodiesel made from used cooking oil collected from restaurants, and a
biodiesel pump station.
Bio Bus
is on the road to zero waste, and we aim to transform transportation in
Bali and inspire the world to live sustainably and educate dynamically.
Bio Bus
is a social enterprise that provides green transportation to the Green School
Community, improves health in villages, and offers unique experiential learning
and leadership opportunities to students.
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