A fearful tipster spotted this truck outside of John Jay with the words “From Food to Fuel” stamped on its side. Intrigued, we couldn’t help but wonder: is this what happens to dining hall leftovers once they’re beyond being recycled as pizza toppings? We thought that was just a Simpsons plotline…

Fueling our food

We did some heavy Googling sleuthing and found this:

RWA Resource Recovery provides free, on-demand, efficient pickups of waste cooking oil to food service establishments in New York City. Participating clients enjoy fully-licensed and insured pickup services that guarantee compliance with New York City waste cooking oil disposal regulations.  All waste cooking oil collected is recycled into ASTM standard biodiesel. Biodiesel is fuel made from vegetable and animal sources. Biodiesel can be used in any diesel engine without modification and burns 78% cleaner than petroleum diesel.

Get that.  John Jay serves not only cleans out your intestines, but the environment, too.