Brazil's JBS has witnessed a 15% increase in the transformation of cooking oil into biodiesel in 2023 under its Óleo Amigo programme.
The programme, created by Biopower, a JBS biodiesel company, collected 4.5 million litres of cooking oil in this period, the company noted.
Óleo Amigo programme seeks to promote environmental education and encourage the circular economy.
In the programme's eight years of existence, more than 26 million litres of oil have been collected and turned into biofuel, JBS added.
The initiative has helped preserve more than 650 billion litres of water, or the equivalent of 260,000 Olympic swimming pools.
Alexandre Pereira, commercial director at Biopower stated, “We believe that it is increasingly necessary to leave behind the traditional model of extracting, producing, purchasing and disposing of the product.
“To give you an idea, just one litre of cooking oil is capable of contaminating 25 thousand litres of water, according to Sabesp. That's why we adopted a model of reintroducing waste as a raw material in production chains to obtain energy with high added value.”
Óleo Amigo
The activities of the Óleo Amigo programme are currently centred in Lins, in the interior of São Paulo, and Curitiba, the capital of Paraná.
It extends to around 87 municipalities in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Paraná and Santa Catarina, with the potential to promote environmental awareness for more than 10 million people in these regions.
The programme, supported by local city halls in Lins and Curitiba, helps to ensure that used oil is not disposed of incorrectly, such as in sinks or on the ground, for example.
In total, more than 550 commercial establishments have already supplied oil for the initiative.
Oil is collected on a scheduled basis, using company lorries and cars, from bars, restaurants, schools and other locations with cooking oil as a waste product.
The product collected undergoes analyses and auditors check whether the oil meets the acidity, impurity and humidity parameters for biodiesel production.
Environmental Awareness
In addition to the companies that support the programme, 51 schools and social institutions actively participate in activities to promote environmental awareness.
The Óleo Amigo programme believes that, through education, it is possible to provoke new sustainable habits and attitudes, which will carried on by new generations.
Since its inception, the programme has directly reached more than 30,000 students, who have become spokespeople for environmental awareness, the company added.
“We teach people in a playful way about how much the programme can benefit the environment and society. For example, we use aquariums to demonstrate how oil forms a layer on top of the water that blocks the passage of oxygen, damaging the entire ecosystem,” Pereira added.
