After much thought and work, grease and grime, sweat and blood I have decided to give up collecting Waste vegetable Oil (WVO)! This was not an easy decision. The pinnacle of my WVO collections was this 1000 gallon haul shown in the pictures (note, the pic of me was after I cleaned up! seriously, I was totally covered in grease by the time I loaded up all the oil). Holly crap, hauling 1000 gallons of WVO is not easy. First, I had to borrow a truck and trailer that could haul this 10,000 lb load, then I had to consolidate 2 of my oil storage units and PUMP all the oil into barrels (10) and totes (2) on the trailer and then I needed to deliver to Whidbey Island. This was my first experience hauling a trailer, so it was a bit of a learning experience to say the least. But I did make it and delivered all 100o gallons. It was rewarding. But also a turning point for me, my lower back took a beating (I have had a herniated disc in the past) and I decided I can not continue to beat myself up like this, and was truly sick of being covered with grease. Sick of all my clothes having grease stains and smelling of grease. And with my NEW full time job, I no longer had the time.
I found a partner and TODAY turned the WVO collections over to him. He is excited about getting in on WVO and biodiesel (which is a great opportunity for him, at no cost except ongoing effort to collect and tran
sport the oil) and I am excited about having being able to stay involved while not having to do the dirty work. We hooked up my super sucker (which is still going strong, btw) into his truck and took it to a restaurant to show him how it works. I created a Google Map listing all my collection points and shared with him. I was surprised that I have accumulated 12 sources of oil over the year. I am eager to start trying to get more sources as long as he can handle the collections. I have several people who are established to purchased clean, filtered dewatered oil and I know if we processed it onto biodiesel that we could sell all we could collect. I even had someone contact me from a large biodiesel company (who Willie Nelson is the major sharholder) who wants to buy my oil. There is still a lot of potential, and now that I have a partner I am sure we can start producing biodiesel and take this business to the next level.
