Travelers Cross the Country in “Green Machine”

 

A young couple from Portland, Oregon recently stopped by the Sustainable Living Department on their cross country adventure that has taken them down the West coast, across the Southwest to New Orleans, up to Pennsylvania and New York, and back across the Midwest on their way home. Although Tom Walther and April Cummins drove a 1986 Ford Van, they did not burn fossil fuel on their journey. They made the entire trip fueled by waste vegetable oil.
This summer, the MUM Sustainable Living Department (SL) is in the process of moving our biodiesel brewing operation into a new facility. During the downtime, we have collected a backlog of waste vegetable oil (WVO) that we use to manufacture biodiesel for the SL vehicles. We placed an ad on Craigslist to get rid of some of the extra oil, and Tom responded.  “Craigslist is a great resource for finding oil,” April explained, saying that they had gotten oil in numerous ways, including online contacts and face-to-face meetings with friendly strangers. “In New Orleans, we just went around to local restaurants, and they were happy to share.”

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