Waste Management sponsors vegetable-oil bus

Sunday, August 05, 2007

From an article on the Web site of American Recycler:

Thirteen Dartmouth College students are crossing the country in a bus powered primarily by waste vegetable oil. The bus will hit more than 45 cities between June and August, campaigning at America’s biggest concerts, conventions and rallies in its more than 10,000-mile odyssey.

Waste Management is a sponsor of the environmental bus. Waste Management was selected to become a sponsor because of the company’s commitment to alternative and renewable energy and recycling programs.

“It’s fitting with our company tag line of Think Green® that Waste Management is the gold sponsor of the Big Green Bus,” said David Aardsma, senior vice president, sales and marketing.

In its third year on the road, the Big Green Bus aims higher and reaches farther than ever before in its goal to put “green” on the mind of every citizen. The bus, recycled from a life as a school bus, has been retrofitted to run on waste vegetable oil collected from fast-food diners and Chinese restaurants. . . .

Connecting various events across the country, places where the students could stay and cities they want to visit, the students chose a route that began on the Dartmouth campus and heads southwest toward Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and over to New Orleans at the end of the month. In July, the bus travels toward Texas and then onto Colorado and Utah before spending the rest of the month in various California cities. In August, the bus travels to Washington and Oregon and the Glacier, Yellowstone and Badlands national parks. The journey then leads to Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio before final stops in Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston.