Gaston County Buses Lucky To Run On Biodiesel

Missy Roddick waited all day for gas. She didn't have enough to take her daughters to school Thursday, and she worried whether the bus they rode would have gas to get them back home.

“It's always a big concern because they use so much gas to get out kids back and forth to school,” she said.

But school bus drivers aren’t worried because they fuel up at the Gaston County Bus Depot. There’s five weeks worth of reserve gas, and workers there are making more.

The director of transportation, Baxter Starr, said five years ago the department began making biodiesel to protect the environment.

“We are still in awe of what we have been able to accomplish,” Starr said.

While many Gaston County residents are paying $3.99 a gallon, it only costs the depot about a dollar a gallon to make fuel, Starr said.

He said the county saved $100,000 in gas last year, and they don't have to wait on refineries. Workers use the cooking oil from school cafeterias, restaurants and the Lance Corporation in Charlotte.

They get the oil, clean it up, and drive more than 10,000 miles a day with it.

The state didn’t pay for the equipment, for that the department went to eBay and army surplus stores.

“We were able to buy about a half a million dollars worth of equipment for about $78,000,” Starr said.

Right now, the concept is more than paying for itself.

Roddick said now the department of transportation needs to find a way to fill the tanks at the corner store.