McDonald's UAE’s  fleet logistics trucks are set to mark on December 15 a milestone of running five million kilometres on recycled vegetable oil.

Introducing the biodiesel initiative in the UAE in July 2011 with the support of Dubai FDI, the foreign investment promotion arm of the Department of Economic Development, McDonald’s UAE is the first quick service restaurant in the Mena region recycling all of McDonald’s UAE waste cooking oil for refuelling the company’s logistics fleet to transport its goods throughout the Emirates, a statement said.

Each of the 16 trucks is collecting used cooking oil from McDonald’s outlets across the UAE once to twice a day and converts it into 100 per cent biodiesel by McDonald’s UAE’s clean tech partner, Neutral Fuels. The biodiesel is then used to fuel the company’s logistics fleet.

Rafic Fakih, managing director and partner at McDonald’s UAE said: “We are proud to announce the 5 million km milestone, an incredible result which has made a significant contribution to the reduction of our carbon footprint in the Emirates.  At McDonald’s UAE we are committed to protect and preserve the environment for future generations and we are aiming to continue using our planet’s resources efficiently.”

Karl Feilder, chairman of Neutral Fuels said:  “This milestone demonstrates long-term commercial innovation in action and proves beyond a doubt that biodiesel is the most viable commercial alternative to old style fossil fuels.”

“Together with McDonald’s, we have shown that running vehicles on 100 per cent biofuel is a safe, logical, and sustainable course of action. We have innovated a completely new way of collecting waste cooking oil, and a novel and highly efficient method of converting that oil to biodiesel.

“As McDonald’s has shown, using biodiesel is so easy and sustainable that anybody could be running their diesel vehicles on this clean fuel. The UAE should be very proud of hosting the first truck fleet in the world to achieve 5 million km on pure biofuels,” he added.

Based on the 2015 UK Government DEFRA conversion factors, McDonald’s UAE has saved 99 per cent of CO2e throughout the four years of driving with Biodiesel compared to driving with normal petrodiesel.

According to the 2015 UK Government DEFRA conversion factors, driving these five million km on normal diesel would have been a carbon footprint of 4,427,759 kg of CO2e whereas the use of biodiesel would have been a carbon footprint of 56,385 kg of CO2e.

As claimed by the World Bank figures, this saving is equivalent to 214,283 UAE average citizens carbon footprint for one year.

The biodiesel campaign has received regional and international acclaim and recognition from the UAE government, media and stakeholders around the world. In February 2012 the Dubai Road and Transport Authority recognised McDonald’s and Neutral Fuels for their commitment to sustainable transport when the Crown Prince of Dubai awarded them with the Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport in the Environmental Protection Category. – TradeArabia News Service