RWA Resource Recovery Solves Local Social Issues in NYC

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The Doe Fund is a self-described “non-profit organization that empowers people to break the cycles of homelessness, welfare dependency, and incarceration through innovative paid-work programs, housing, supportive services and business ventures.” Their Ready, Willing and Able Community Improvement Project employs homeless people and former convicts in the New York City area to provide them with responsibility and a fair wage while serving the local community. A recent Times article described the organization’s most recent project, RWA Resource Recovery, which serves three important purposes in addition to creating job opportunities: to provide an environmentally-friendly waste cooking oil collection service for food service businesses in New York City, to reduce improper waste disposal in the city, and to facilitate clean-burning biodiesel production for local use.

The group currently employs six workers, who collect grease from about 154 restaurants and other clients in New York for free, and deliver it to a biofuel plant on Long Island that processes it for commercial consumption. The team collected over 14,000 gallons in April, and continues to grow in scope.

I’ve seen operations like this cropping up at several universities across the nation — that collect the grease waste from on-campus restaurants and refine it into fuel for their own service fleets — and I think it’s a fantastic idea! This NYC operation attacks three problems with one innovative solution: creating work for people who need a second chance, providing a useful and free recycling service to local restaurant owners, and helping create an earth-friendly fuel!

Turning Grease to Fuel, and Despair to Hope [NYT, via Treehugger.com]

[photo credit: Earl Wilson for the New York Times]

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