McDonald's UAE trucks drive 5m km on biodiesel

On December 15, McDonald's UAE will hit a major milestone when its fleet of logistics trucks will reach five million km running on 100% recycled vegetable oil from McDonald’s UAE outlets.

Introducing the 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 recycles all of its waste cooking oil for refueling the company’s logistics fleet to transport its goods throughout the Emirates.

Each of the 16 trucks collects used cooking oil from McDonald’s outlets across the UAE up to twice a day and converts it into 100% 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 hitting the milestone has made a significant contribution to the reduction of the brand's carbon footprint in the UAE.

"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,” he added.

Karl Feilder, chairman of Neutral Fuels, commented: "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% 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 five million km on pure biofuels."