Roads to be built using chip fat

Over 1m tonnes of the bitumen used each year to build and repair roads may be soon be replaced by recycled cooking fat.

Bitumen is the oil-based substance that binds together aggregate to produce asphalt – the material with which we pave our roads. The increasing price oil has prompted the development of cheaper, sustainable alternatives and bitumen can be made from renewable resources such as sugar, rice, corn and potato starches or the fractional distillation of used motor oil.

Non-petroleum-based bitumen has the added advantage of being light-coloured, which offers the possibility of road surfaces that absorb less heat thereby reducing the ‘urban heat island’ effect.

The used cooking fat process is due to be tested on road surfacing projects in Lincolnshire.

Running a car on used cooking oil

Cooking oil is good for more than simply building roads – it can be used to produce a biofuel suitable for many types of diesel engine. A device called the FuelPod 2 allows car drivers to process turn cooking oil into biofuel for around 11pence a litre.

No charge for mis-fuelling

Ethical breakdown provider, the ETA, will not charge extra if you call them out as a result of putting the wrong type of fuel in your tank.