Biodiesel Driveathon“A Green Initiative”
India needs a legislation for collection mechanism for Used Cooking Oils (UCO)
For Immediate Release
Mumbai/Pune, 6h July, 2017
Biodiesel Association of India (BDAI), a non-profit national association representing the biodiesel Industry, today flagged off the “Biodiesel Driveathon” (an awareness campaign in the form of Biodiesel Car rally) from Mumbai to Pune.
This unique green initiative by BDAI highlighted the harmful effects of Used Cooking Oils (UCO) on the public health. At the same time UCO is an indigenous feedstock for Biodiesel that will create 4mn tons capacity and more than 10lack jobs.
SHRI. SUBHASH SURESHCHANDRA DESHMUKH, CABINET MINISTER for CO-OPERATION, TEXTILES AND MARKETING, GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA will be the chief Guest and Shri Ravinder Gupta, CAO, IROAF, Railway Board, Government of India will be the Guest of Honor.
India consumes annually about 22 million tons of vegetable oil.This generates about 3-4 million tons of UCO which finds its way back into our food chain. The Used Cooking Oils (UCO) are one of the major health problem resulting in obesity, heart disease and cancer in masses. There is an urgentneed to create awareness among consumers about the health hazard of UCO. Biodiesel is the most efficient tool to bring down the particulate emission levels.
BDAI has been requesting for a National policy on Used Cooking Oil (UCO) that should ensure end to end traceability, material balance by all major vegetable oil consumers.
Speaking on this green initiative, Mr. Sandeep Chaturvedi, President, BDAI said,” lack of awareness has led to parallel UCO marketleaking into the food chain. Largerpublic participationsupported by a national legislationwould be required to fight this common cause. First and foremost, UCO should sell only to authorize collection agency, this will ensure UCO elimination from our food chain.
Mr.Chaturvedi further added,“BDAI recommends government to have a National Policy for Biodiesel Industry to preserve the interests of all stakeholders. This will create an investment opportunity of about 4million tons of bio-diesel in the country. The direct employment would be 36000in the processing of Biodiesel and that in the UCO collection infrastructure will 10laks jobs.”
Oil feedstock is the major cost of biodiesel production accounting over 85-90 %. The use of waste vegetable oil as biodiesel feedstock will improve the economics of biodiesel significantly. The restaurants, at the same time, do not need to spend money to transport the waste cooking oil to discharge into specific locations. The municipalities involved in the sewage treatment could spend less money for sewage treatment if the lipid content in the sewage is low. Hence, recycling of waste cooking oil to produce biodiesel will reduce the cost of waste treatment.
Hence Bringing in suitable mechanism and legislation to promote the use of UCO in Biodiesel production would go long way to replace conventional fuel with a green and clean fuel.
About Biodiesel Association of India
The Biodiesel Association of India (BDAI) is a non-profit national association representing the biofuels sector, and in particular the biodiesel industry as the coordinating body for marketing, research and development in INDIA to encourage biofuels, especially biodiesel and assure sustainable agricultural growth, rural development, energy security and equal opportunity for the masses with overall environmental protection.BDAI is developing into a comprehensive industry association, which co-ordinates and interacts with a broad range of co-operators including industry, government and academia. BDAI's membership is comprised of farmers/cultivators societies, national feedstock and feedstock processor organizations, biodiesel suppliers, fuel marketers and distributors and technology providers.
For further information, please contact:-
Ruchira Sharma
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M: - 7709623385
Aishwarya Bane
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M:- 8976117221