Junior WIN Team- T.G.I.F

The WIN Team

The Westerly Innovations Network

The Junior WIN Team:

T.G.I.F.

Project T.G.I.F—Turning Grease into Fuel, aims to recycle used cooking oil into biodiesel to help heat needy people’s home in Westerly.

The idea was first initiated after reading an article in The Westerly Sun about the WARM shelter’s A Dollar A Week campaign to raise funds for heating assistance in Westerly. At the same time, we knew of the growing problem of global warming and the emissions produced by conventional petroleum based fuels. We looked for a solution to this problem through recycling cooking oil.

Some restaurants may produce between 100 and 300 gallons of cooking oil per month. These restaurants then pay a company to dispose of the oil. Instead, we envisioned a system where companies would donate their oil to be recycled, and some of the oil recycled would be donated to the WARM shelter for heating assistance.

Our project has the goal of raising awareness about the possibility of recycling cooking oil as well as creating a sustainable system to recycle the cooking oil. We worked with Grease Co. and various biodiesel companies to create a system where we would sign up restaurants to give them used cooking oil, and they would process the oil and then donate a portion to the local charitable agencies, which would distribute the oil to the families on their lists for heating assistance.

We made a presentation to the Town Council in November, 2008 (picture 3) to establish a cooking oil container at the Westerly Transfer Station (pic 2) so that residents as well as restaurants could donate their cooking oil to be recycled.

We met with Reverend Jean Barry (pic 4), the executive director of the WARM Shelter, to learn more about the situation this winter, as well as what the WARM shelter does for our community. We were able to find out a way in which our work could directly help the WARM Shelter and our community. In addition, we met with Mr. Ryan Mason of Mason Biodiesel (pic 5) to learn about the biodiesel refining process. The team analyzed different types of oil for their potential output in biodiesel and learned more about what happens to the biodiesel we recycle.

In December, 2008, we won a Disney Minnie Grant and a Youth Venture Seed Grant to fund and support our project. On March 9th, 2009, the team presented both the Bradford Johnnycake Center and the Westerly Area Rest Meals (WARM Center) with 1,000 gallons of Bioheat® each to distribute to recipients of emergency heating assistance (pic 1).

The WIN Team is expanding Project T.G.I.F by reaching out to more restaurants in neighboring towns, such as Narragansett, Stonington, and Mystic. We are reaching these other towns by partnering with MASH (Mystic Area Shelter and Hospitality). We have also gained the support of the Narragansett Town Council.

In order to see if our project was both efficient and low-cost, we designed our own experiment (pic 7) to make biodiesel. From our results, making biodiesel out of waste cooking oil is the most cost-effective.

In December 2009, the team presented more checks to the WARM Shelter (pic 8) and also Mystic Area and Hospitality (MASH) (pic 9) .

In January 2010, Clinton Biodiesel Initiatives from Clinton, CT (pic 10) visited us and would like to implement Project TGIF in their city.

We delivered another check of 1,000 gallons of Bioheat to the Bradford Johnnycake Center in February 2010 (pic 11).

On February 18, 2010, we presented Project T.G.I.F. to mayor Scott Avedisian of Warwick, RI as well as Ms. Sue Stenhouse ;the director of community relations for the State of RI, who were interested in Project TGIF (pic 12). They are now helping us to implement our project in Warwick and other cities in Rhode Island by signing up additional restaurants , as well as raising awareness through the school systems.

Due to the historic flood in March, 2010, many of the local businesses were underwater and desperately needed help. In May, 2010, the junior WIN team donated our award money of $3,600 to the Jump Start Small Businesses Recovery Fund initiated by the Greater Westerly—Pawcatuck Area Chamber of Commerce in exchange for 12 newly signed restaurants from Chamber members to project T.G.I.F. The town of Westerly has matched our donations to the funding (pic 13).

WIN has been working with MASH (Mystic Area Shelter & Hospitality) on project T.G.I.F. since 2009. In July, 2010, MASH helped lobby the town of Stonington to participate in project T.G.I.F. Edward Haberek Jr. (First selectman of Stonington, CT), Ms. Lisa Tepper Bates (CEO of MASH), Ms. Gracelyn Guyol (Founder / President of CUSH—Clean Up Stonington Harbors) and WIN announced that the installment of the public waste cooking oil recycling station at the Stonington transfer station is now located at 151 Greenhaven Road, Pawcatuck, CT (pic 14).

Future Plans

So far, we have travelled to and signed up 85 restaurants (pic 6) to participate in our program. 30,000 gallons of biodiesel can be produced from the waste cooking oil we help recycle. More than $10,000 has been given to the charitable organizations in the form of Bioheat®, totaling over 40 households spared from heatless winters because of our efforts. We plan to extend our program to Groton / New London, Connecticut and Warwick, RI to have 150 restaurants signed up by 2011 and double the results we have already achieved. We met with Ms. Janine L. Burke (Executive Director of Warwick Sewer Authority) and Ms. Betty Anne Rossi (Pretreatment Coordinator of WSA) to plan the launch of T.G.I.F. in Warwick starting September, 2010 (pic 15).

In the future, our team plans to mandate the use of B5 (Biodiesel 5%) in all heating oil and B100 (100% biodiesel) in all marine vessels operated in RI. (Other states such as MA and PA have laws to use biodiesel blends for home heating). We also plan to help install several biodiesel pump stations in Rhode Island in the future.

P.O. Box 2116, Westerly, RI 02891

Last Update: August 23, 2010

WESTERLY INNOVATIONS NETWORK IS A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION WITH 501(C)(3) non-profit STATUS. ALL DONATIONS are 100 % TAX DEDUCTIBLE.

OUR UNITED WAY AGENCY NUMBER IN CONNECTICUT IS 2368, OR YOU CAN SEND donations DIRECTLY TO us at P.O. BOX 2116, WESTERLY, RI.

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Webmaster: Cassandra, 7th Grade

WIN team activities