Tuckahoe Village Departments

TUCKAHOE TALK
With Mayor John Fitzpatrick

The Brew Master

February, 2010

That title might sound like something you would expect a mayor named Fitzpatrick to write about; except Tuckahoe’s brew master is of Italian descent. No, this gentleman is not making wine or beer in his basement but instead another specific amber colored brew at our DPW yard. I am speaking of DPW Lead Mechanic Joseph (Joey) Tavolilla. In the past, his normal day consisted of keeping our aging fleet of garbage trucks, plows and other vehicles road worthy. Over the last year, an experimental assignment was added to his routine. That was to retrofit our garbage trucks to operate on waste vegetable oil and no longer use diesel. I now have no doubt, in Mr. Tavolilla’s ancestral family tree; in addition to great mechanics, there must be a vintner or a scientist.

I have written about this subject before; however, it has been in passing and without real detail. A year ago we passed laws requiring restaurants to contain any cooking oil waste and install grease traps on their waste lines. The impetus for this action was twofold: first to cut down on the ooze that leaks from the trucks onto sidewalks and streets, second to address the cost of overtime from clogs in the waste sewer lines that were grease-related in origin. Whether on the streets or clogged in our pipes, it is pretty disgusting. In the pipes it looks like a wax log and eventually chokes it closed. The building department has diligently kept all restaurants compliant and few of these lines have required an emergency call. Oddly, a few residential neighborhoods continue to have these grease clogs. This is caused by residents knowingly and continually using their kitchen sink to dispose of cooking oil.

Some residents refill the original container with the used oil and dispose of it in the garbage; others freeze it and then dispose of it. While both are acceptable, the oil is then placed in landfills. A few real environmentally conscious residents have taken to dropping it off at the Tuckahoe Village Yard. Anyone can feel free to do this, yet we have a few requirements. If you have used cooking oil, any kind of vegetable oil (olive, corn, peanut) we will gladly take it. But it can’t have “floaties” in it. Now a dictionary may not acknowledge “floaties” as a word, but you know what I’m talking about. This means if you are cooking French fries or chicken cutlets, I can’t have all the crumbs and pieces of things floating around in the dropped off oil. You must filter off this food waste first. We don’t need you to remove micro particles, but the “floaties” must go.

“Brew Master” Joey takes all that we collect, lets it settle and pumps off any water. Restaurants use water to clean their grills and this unfortunately mixes with oil. He then runs it through a 200 micron screen and moves it to his primary tank. This tank is heated to 110˚, further separating any water which he drains off. It is then moved to a secondary tank and through a 5 micron sock filter. This tank is heated to 180˚ and the mixture runs through a centrifuge filter for 3 hours. Mr. Tavolilla states this cleans the oil to 1/10th of a micron pure. Much of his knowledge came from internet research but he has now added a few steps of his own to come up with the final product. On his desk he keeps a set of the mason jars for educational purposes. The first is filled with what he generally starts off with, the second is disgustingly filled with what he cleans out and the third is filled with the clean amber fuel. He never misses an opportunity to point out I could now cook with this if I wanted.

Each truck still can be operated by standard diesel if desired, since the veggie tank and hoses are auxiliary. Once it is in our garbage trucks, our two sanitation chauffeurs Al Hagen and Ray Palma have a few extra steps to ensure this process is successful and thankfully they too are a great help. They must actually start the truck on diesel until the engine reaches 125˚ and then the drivers throw a switch and it switches over to pure vegetable oil. A simple purge of the filters at the end of the day clears out the vegetable oil and primes it with diesel for easy start the next day.

Let me be clear: this program may not be for every community. The process of collection and creating the fuel takes time and space. With our two truck garbage fleet this is manageable. Tuckahoe Village’s current garbage routes and scheduling require about 75 gallons of fuel to operate a garbage truck each week. We have two trucks, so we burn 150 a week. With this volume of consumption, to play it safe, it is necessary to have on hand a little less than a thousand gallons. Unfortunately, the amount of required waste cooking oil produced by our restaurants doesn’t make us fully self-sufficient. Thankfully, other close-by establishments, like the Ursuline School, are supplementing our intake. Another community may deem our $20,000 decrease in fuel and minor initial investment in a few tanks and filters wise but without the commitment and knowledge of someone like Brew Master Tavolilla to create the fuel it would not be successful.