Greece like other countries in Europe has declared the intention to move towards the so called ‘Green Economy’. The emphasis is placed on RECYCLING.
The good news for our region is the fact, that we started solving a very old environmental problem.
We are talking about used cooking oil.
Up to now, the only disposal route for these oils was to discharge them into the rubbish bins or these oils would end up in a sewage system. The negative impact to the local environment and the economy from this practice is obvious:
- These oils create problems in sewage systems and at the same time the municipalities spend more resources at biological treatments plants for separation and treatment of this stream.
- These oils create odors and fire exposure when left in the rubbish bins and create general mess at the refuse utility places.
- Contamination of water in rivers and consequently in the sea imposing a very negative impact on aquatic ecology.
At the moment, there are a lot of companies, that work in the sector of collection of used vegetable oils from catering establishments (restaurants taverns etc..) The collected oil is usually sent for a production of environmentally friendly bio-diesel and bio compost. We are very proud, that Evros region in North Greece made its important contribution in this activity through our company.
The main objective of our team is the protection of the local environment by applying the best practice in the sector and continuing to improve the local environment by actions and not just by words. With this philosophy we started new, difficult, but absolutely necessary work.
Though just beginning, with success in this area, the region and our local economy will acquire the following benefits:
- Contribution to the so called “Green Economy”
- Permanent removal of dangerous used vegetable oil from the food chain
- Protection of the local waterways
- Reduction of volume of harmful waste ending up at refuse sites
- Reduction in natural resource use – converting waste into energy
- Creation of new jobs
We have developed a viable business model that can be transferred to other places where the oil problem still exists. And our experience in this field will be very beneficial in any attempt to the business model geographic transfer.
We are looking forward for any potential synergies with any establishment in any place of the world with the only criterion, this synergy to be beneficial to the all the stakeholders and to be in line with our company’s environmental mission.
After establishing the collection of used vegetable oil from a large number of establishments in catering industry in Thraki region, our team proceeded to the next phase of the initial plan.
From the very beginning we proposed the creation of an organised network of oil collection from the local households.
To every block of flats that wanted to cooperate with us, our team provided free of charge a plastic drum for used oil collection, depending on needs of 30 or 50 litres.
Residents can dispose of their used oil into these containers and our operator visits these blocks when needed to remove the full barrel and replace it with a clean empty one.
However, our objective was to provide a service of collection of oils to all the willing households in the area and the present way of collection does not cover all those needs, as a lot of people do not have access to our service for various reasons.
Consequently, Ekothrak has developed synergy with a company with a unique design and collection model to initiate a pilot project through which we hope to install special automatic machines for UVO collection, here in Alexandropoulis.
Each household will have a special bottle for the storage of the used culinary oil and when this bottle is full the households will deposit this full bottle into the machine and will receive a clean empty bottle for the next cycle.
Once tested this model, we will be looking for synergies with other entities interested in transferring our collection model to other places here in Greece or abroad.
