EDGEWATER — It turns out the feasts associated with the Thanksgiving holiday are a boon to Loyola University's biofuel lab.
The university expects to collect more than 60 gallons of used cooking oil within the next few days as people drop off oil used to fry this year's Thanksgiving bird.
"When you have five gallons [of used oil], most folks don’t know what to do with it," said Zach Waickman, the director of Loyola's biofuel lab, which makes biodiesel for the fleet of buses that connect the school's campuses. "We want to give them a nice, easy outlet."
A cardboard box outside the lab, located within Loyola's Institute of Environmental Sustainability at 6349 N. Kenmore Ave., had been filled with at least 20 gallons of used oil by Monday morning, he said.
Each gallon of oil would be converted into one gallon of biodiesel, Waickman said.
Most of the lab's oil comes from restaurants and from campus dining halls, he said, and production usually hovers around 30,000 gallons a year.
Used oil can be dropped off at the lab from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. through Friday.
