First biodiesel plant opens in Bali

Bali has opened its very first biodiesel plant located in North Denpasar.

The plant will use public commodities such as hotels and restaurants for their cooking oil. The oil will then be used to produce environmentally friendly fuel.

Caritas Switzerland, a non-governmental organisation, operates the project.

The NGO is focussed on socioeconomic and sustainable development, including finding environmentally friendly answers to fuel problems.

Thorsten Reckerzügl, the NGO’s country representative, told the Bali Daily that the plant is completely green.

"It emits no carbon, uses waterless purification and leaves so little waste it’s hardly noticeable. Frankly, the whole process was made easy for us with such a user-friendly system," he said.

However, getting to this stage has been a long and arduous process, he admitted.

He claimed that the first biodiesel plant has only come to fruition thanks to strong support from Indonesian government stakeholders.

Although the operation is relatively new, it has already been deemed a success by Mr Reckerzügl.

"We are already using it as fuel for our own diesel cars and it works perfectly," he claimed.

Because this is the first plant of its type in Bali, the operation was a delicate one, he explained.

"We needed a system that was affordable yet hi-tech enough to deliver on our promises. We also needed one that could be located where we wanted it, near the local municipality, because we need to cooperate closely with them," he said.

Disposing of cooking oil in this way is also beneficial to the general public, he has claimed.

"Often, unbeknownst to the owners, customers and tourists, overused cooking oil forms carcinogenic substances, posing a serious risk to human health," Reckerzügl said.

"We also discovered that 10 to 20 percent of used cooking oil is disposed of with solid waste, or ends up in waterways."