Fast Food

HUNTINGDON — Having a mom who saved twist-ties, rubber bands and anything she felt had potential for a second life, Tony Seguin said the seeds of his waste-not philosophy were sowed at an early age.

When he opened Boxer’s Cafe 17 years ago, Tony said its wasn’t long before he felt overwhelmed by the amount of waste a restaurant can generate and since has worked with his wife, Paula, to track down ways to reduce and recycle their output.

“Waste is so much harder to ignore when you’re dealing with this kind of volume. It’s maybe easier for a household to ignore,” Tony said.

A week’s worth of french fries and hot wings translates to about 13 gallons of used vegetable oil. The Seguins used to pay to have the oil trucked away, but now they get extra mileage out of the grease by using it as fuel for their Volkswagen Jettas.

Investing about $1,400 a car for parts and labor, Tony sought out mechanics Chris and Isaac Fisher to convert his and Paula’s diesel fuel cars to run on vegetable oil. The Fishers have a loyal customer base of Volkswagen drivers, so the family-run service garage Car Tunes was the Seguins’ top pick for the project.

Fisher, 19, said he never expected to create a grease-powered car.

“It was decent — not bad at all,” he said of placing a 13.2 gallon tank in the trunk of a turbo diesel Jetta where the spare tire used to sit.

“There [were] a lot of people asking questions about it,” Fisher said. He since has completed four conversions and is about to begin a fifth.

Tony said there are several alternative fuel kits available, but he chose Grease Car which allows him and Paula to fill up on straight vegetable oil. Tony had read about Massachusetts-based Grease Car’s simple conversion process that pairs two fuel tanks — one for diesel and one for vegetable oil — which the driver alternates between with the turn of a switch.

Tony said driving a Grease Car has called for a few changes in motoring habits, namely keeping an eye on the engine temperature so he knows when to hit the switch to transfer the fuel source from the diesel tank to the vegetable oil tank.

“Usually, you drive one or two miles before you can switch over,” he said, adding that in winter he typically drives about four miles before the engine warms up enough.

En route from the fryer to the fuel tank, the oil is filtered through canvas bags to remove food particles, then it is stored until it’s time to fill up. At a rate of about 13 gallons of vegetable oil waste a week, Tony said he has enough fuel to supply a small fleet including his Jetta, Paula’s and a friend’s Grease Car.

The filtering process, he said, doesn’t call for a fancy lab, but a simple setup of buckets and bags he keeps in the basement.

Besides switching between fuel tanks and filtering oil, Tony said it’s driving as usual.

“There’s no noticeable difference in performance,” he said.

“And no difference in mileage,” Paula added. “I’m still getting about 40 to 50 [miles per gallon] on the highway.”

The Seguins have traveled all over in their Grease Cars, saving on fuel and gaining peace of mind in the knowledge that they’ve found yet another way to recycle.

Among the most disturbing places in the Seguins’ travel log was a landfill they visited years ago to dispose material left over from a remodeling project that they couldn’t recycle.

“There were these tractor-type vehicles, about the size of the trucks you’d see at the sand plant, with steel knobs sticking out of their tires, driving over this mountain of trash,” Tony recalled.

Paula said she’ll never forget that first eye-opening experience amid rolling hills of garbage.

“We drove up into it and it was just upsetting, really upsetting, to see all that waste.”

“The saying ‘ignorance is bliss’ is so true. Once you become aware of the problem, you can’t not do anything about it,” Paula said.

It was a sight that strengthened their desire to go the extra mile.

Before the restaurant switched to Earth-friendly paper containers, Tony would travel to Lancaster County several times a year to return washed and rinsed polystyrene to the manufacturer for recycling.

He and Paula have tracked down suppliers for all types of environmentally-sound goods: bio-degradable straws, menus printed in soy-based ink on recycled paper and organic cotton T-shirts printed with water-based ink.

Leftovers from the 150 to 200 lunches and dinners they serve each day help feed hogs at a local farm.

What the hogs won’t eat — coffee grounds and citrus peels — are composted at home.

In other words, where there is waste, Tony sees potential for reduction or reuse.

“I think being in this business magnifies the whole thing. We’re all such consumers and there are so many alternatives people just aren’t aware of,” he said.

By Rebecca Berdar

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