Eco City Biodiesel Filling Station Arrives in St. David’s
The St. David’s Eco City Project has installed a new community biodiesel filling station at Trehenlliw in St. David’s, so that local people can start using eco-friendly biodiesel made from recycled vegetable cooking oil.
The biodiesel, which is now available to anyone who joins the Eco City Biodiesel Club, is supplied by Sundance Renewables of Ammanford - a not-for-profit workers’ cooperative. The fuel is as biodegradable as sugar, less toxic than salt and produces far less directly harmful pollution than normal ‘mineral’ diesel - like soot particles that can harm human health, and sulphur dioxide which causes acid rain.
Increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are causing damaging climate change - one of the greatest environmental threats facing the planet. When you run your vehicle on ordinary ‘mineral’ diesel, you increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is because you are releasing carbon dioxide from carbon that was locked away, in oil, hundreds of millions of years ago.
However, when you use Sundance’s biodiesel you barely increase the overall amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and reduce your contribution to climate change. The crops grown to produce vegetable oil, used in the biodiesel, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This carbon dioxide is then soon released back into the atmosphere when you use the biodiesel.
“Switching to biodiesel will really help protect the planet and reduce the amount of climate-change-causing carbon dioxide being released. Climate change is probably the greatest environmental threat facing mankind, so we need to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions as much as we possibly can,” said Julian Orchard, project manager at St. David’s Eco City.
“Because it’s an environmentally friendly fuel, our biodiesel provides owners of diesel vehicles with the opportunity to switch from ordinary diesel - slashing their contribution to climate change,” said Jan Cliff, founder and Director of Sundance Renewables.
“And biodiesel prices are already competing with ordinary diesel prices - we expect that the average cost of biodiesel will soon fall below the average cost of ordinary mineral diesel,” she added.
Climate change is already causing droughts, rising sea levels and damage to wildlife habitats. Mankind’s main contribution to climate change is the carbon dioxide that is produced when fossil fuels such as oil (from which normal mineral diesel is made), coal and natural gas are burnt.
The St. David’s Eco City Project, which is supported by The National Lottery, aims to help St. David’s reduce its carbon emissions and become the first carbon-neutral city in the world.
Making biodiesel available to the community is just one of the many initiatives being taken by the project, which is directed by several local people together with organisations such as The TYF Group Ltd., West Wales Eco Centre, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and CCW. It is hoped that other cities and communities will follow the example set by St. Davids.
For further information about biodiesel, or to find out about joining the Eco City Biodiesel Club, please e-mail via the feedback form.

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