Oil Opportunity

McDonald’s is finding ways to incorporate used cooking oil into their operations. The answer is biodiesel.

In several countries across the McDonald’s System, our restaurants are recycling their used cooking oil for re-use in a variety of products, including the creation of biodiesel – an environmentally friendly diesel fuel made from recycling vegetable oils.

“We have a resource that can be put to good use, and we’ve been taking steps, to varying degrees across the System, to utilize it in the best interests of the business,” says Brian Kramer, Senior Manager Corporate Social Responsibility. “This is an exciting and relevant area for all of us – and one where McDonald’s is looking to make a greater impact.”

From Fryer to Fuel

The oil-into-fuel effort is just one aspect of our larger environmental platform. With consumers ranking environmental protection as a top expectation of socially responsible businesses, McDonald’s is continuously working on a variety of ways to go green – from reducing energy use at our restaurants to creating a more sustainable supply chain.

With regard to biodiesel, the way it normally works is that restaurants team up with a contractor who picks up the used oil in bulk and sells it to companies that specialize in refining the product into clean burning diesel for consumer use.

McDonald’s stepped into this arena about six years ago with a test run in Austria – and the effort has gradually gained momentum. Today, biodiesel initiatives are occurring in major markets across Europe, APMEA, Latin America and the U.S.

The leader in this effort is McDonald’s Europe, which recycles all of its used oil – and sends approximately 80% to the production of biodiesel. Meanwhile, a growing number of U.S. restaurants are also directing their oil from fries to fuel.

The bulk cooking oil delivery and retrieval program that McDonald’s USA has been implementing with our supplier, RTI, over the past decade has achieved significant results as well. Currently, there more than 7,500 U.S. restaurants enrolled in the program, which includes delivery of the cooking oil to the restaurants in bulk via a portal on the exterior of the restaurant to a tank in the store. At the same time, waste oil is sucked out a separate tank and then sold to biofuel companies and other purchasers such as pet food companies.

There are a range of environmental benefits to the bulk oil program. For example, every year it eliminates a significant amount of packaging that would normally be used if the cooking oil was delivered in smaller plastic jugs in corrugated boxes, or “Jibs”. This, in turn, reduces the amount of waste that goes to landfill.

Fueling McDonald’s Trucks

Some markets, like Austria and the U.K., have taken things one step further – and now use some of their reformulated oil to fuel their McDonald’s delivery trucks. It’s known in the environmental world as “closing the loop” – taking your used products and putting them to good use back into your system.

“This really is a great story,” says Sebastian Csaki, Manager Environment and Corporate Social Responsibility McDonald’s Europe. “The fact that we’re able to recycle so much of our used oil into biodiesel and use it in our own trucks truly shows our commitment to lessening our environmental impact in innovative ways.”

Want to learn more?

Visit www.crmcdonalds.com

Links:

Enviro section of CR Report

Best of Green Europe