by Sarah Ryley (sarah@brooklyneagle.net)
published online 07-16-2007

Brooklyn-Based GreenDepot Is City’s 1st Private Biodiesel Customer
By Sarah Ryley
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

GREENPOINT — Greenpoint-based GreenDepot, a national supplier of green building materials, yesterday became the city’s first private company to power its fleet with green fuel. The company pumped 28 trucks with recycled cooking oil from city restaurants converted into biodiesel, also known as yellow grease.

In addition to being largely free of trans fats, the biodiesel in the company’s trucks would reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 45 cars off the streets. Company spokesman Christian-Philippe Quilici said if the initial testing period proves successful, all 500 vehicles in the company’s fleet would run on biodiesel, “and it looks as if that’s going to happen.”

Tri-State Biodiesel, the state’s first biodiesel provider, is providing the fuel. The company has an office in Manhattan, ships waste cooking oil directly from city restaurants to an out-of-state producer, then distributes it locally. But when Tri-State’s Red Hook facility is completed next spring, the fuel will also be produced locally, “closing the loop” and further reducing emissions, said CEO Brent Baker.

“[Yesterday] really marks biodiesel coming into the private sector in New York. Previously, we had government use as the only real biodiesel in the city,” he said.

The city’s Department of Parks and Recreation and Department of Sanitation currently use out-of-state biodiesel, but Baker said his three-year-old company is registered to bid on those contracts. “We’ll bid on those contracts, and we expect to get both state and city contracts,” he said. “There’s also hopefully going to be a bio-heat mandate on the city level as part of [Mayor Bloomberg’s plaNYC 2030 sustainability initiative], and we hope to see some action on that soon.”

From touring the country in a biodiesel bus in 1995, when he was still a punk rock radio DJ in the Lower East Side, to becoming a CEO, Baker said he’s seen tremendous growth in the biodiesel industry.

“If you think about an industry that was building its first factories in 1996-’97, to 250 million gallons produced by 80 or 90 factories [today], that’s a pretty impressive growth, especially for the kind of industry that we are, which requires a high amount of capital investment,” said Baker.

A little slower to take off, the green building materials movement, which generally started in the 1970s, is also becoming mainstream, especially as the prices and appearances of the alternative supplies begin to match or beat the original thing. Places like GreenDepot, a Marjam subsidiary that is like “a green version of Home Depot,” sell everything from recycled denim insulation to energy-efficient light bulbs.

The green building movement stresses two components: environmentally friendly and non-toxic materials; and energy efficiency, especially involving alternative energy systems.

Quilici said the company is building a more consumer-friendly showroom in its Greenpoint location for do-it-yourselfers. cap Tri-State Biodiesel CEO Brent Baker stands by as generators for Solar One’s Citysol 2007 festival are filled. The music and arts festival on the East River is entirely powered by clear energy. Solar One Photograph by Johnny O’Hara

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
All materials posted on brooklyneagle.com are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast, posted on Gotham Gazette.com or any other blog without written permission, which can be sought by emailing arturc@att.net.

Main Office 718 422 7400

(original URL: http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=27&id=14066)