McDonald’s is to fuel its delivery trucks with biodiesel made from used cooking oil

• Hardcastle Restaurants, the company that owns and operates McDonald's franchises in western and southern India, announced that they will recycle used cooking oil to produce biodiesel that will fuel its supply delivery trucks.
• 85 restaurants in Mumbai are already converting 35,000 litres of regular oil into biodiesel every month.
  
• The company plans to bring all their 277 outlets under the recycling programme.

Hardcastle Restaurants, the company that owns and operates McDonald's franchises in western and southern India, has initiated a novel project to help reduce the company’s carbon footprint in India.

The company announced on Monday that they will recycle the cooking oil used in making its food items to produce biodiesel that will fuel its supply delivery trucks.

Last year, Hardcastle Restaurants along with Unicon Biofuels, piloted the project in Mumbai. In fact, 85 restaurants in Mumbai are already converting 35,000 litres of regular oil into biodiesel every month.

Next, it plans to replicate this in Bengaluru and eventually, according to Vikram Ogale, director, supply chain and quality assurance, Hardcastle Restaurants (HRPL), the company plans to bring all their 277 outlets under the recycling programme.

Ogale claims that the fuel generated by converting cooking oil is believed to have 75% lower carbon emissions than diesel over its entire lifecycle.

Sandeep Chaturvedi, president of the Biodiesel Association of India, said that this conversion of used cooking oil to biodiesel has been done in adherence with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). He also urged other companies to follow suit and help reduce the burden on the environment.

This initiative is, however, not unique to India. In fact, McDonald's UAE launched the first such project way back in 2011. And in June 2018, seven years after the launch, McDonald’s UAE announced that its logistics fleet of biodiesel delivery trucks had clocked a staggering 10,000,000 kilometres since the launch of the project. Thereby significantly reducing the company’s carbon footprint. In fact, using this fuel is believed to have saved 8,563 tonnes of carbon dioxide.