In response to his growing interest in facilitating a movement "from gray to green infrastructure," civil engineer Ben Jordan left his job designing municipal utility infrastructure at a private consulting firm in downtown San Francisco and started his own ecological design firm in the spring of 2004. Ben didn't just transition to green design such as sustainable grading and drainage, rainwater harvesting, grey and black water systems, and living roofs in his professional life, he also made some big personal changes. He sold his car, bought a small diesel truck, began oil collection, started making biodiesel, and became a member of the San Francisco Biofuels Cooperative.

In 2005, taking the access directive of the group's biodiesel education, access, and advocacy mission very seriously, Ben started the worker-owned small business Peoples Fuel Cooperative, an SF-based distribution and consulting company. Peoples Fuel provided sustainably sourced, locally produced, ASTM certified biodiesel delivery to homes and businesses and provided fleet implementation services to private clients, including Pacific Gas and Electric and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. With an EPA grant, Peoples Fuel was part of a team that developed biodiesel education training materials for fleet operators and fuel distributors. Peoples Fuel served an important local market until 2012 when it wound down due mainly to the incompatibility of 2007 and newer light duty vehicles with nearly all biodiesel blends.

Early on, Ben also had a vision of how biodiesel could provide sustainable solutions to the serious environmental and financial costs faced by cities as a result of the improper disposal of fats, oils, and grease (FOG), something he had learned about first-hand while inspecting sewers at his previous job. Ben reached out to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), and with the early involvement of Randall von Wedel's BioSolar, executed this vision and earned recognition as the architect of what in 2007 became SFGreasecycle, an innovative SFPUC program that diverts FOG from the sewers and turns it into biodiesel for use in San Francisco's fleets.

"For environmental and infrastructure protection, the City has to ensure that all waste products, including used cooking oil (UCO), are managed. The private rendering industry does the best job for about two-thirds of the need depending on commodity prices," Ben says. "There is much less of a profit motive for the service of the bottom one-third of restaurants, so SFGreasecycle was started and operates for the purpose of collecting from smaller restaurants, food carts, and entities traditionally missed, which is certainly more cost effective than dealing with the pollution once it enters the sewer system, " he added.

Biofuel Recycling, a public-benefit corporation with a mission focusing on converting waste to energy, was created to provide technical and engineering assistance services to the SFPUC. Today Biofuel Recycling is involved in waste resource sourcing and identifying opportunities to leverage municipal infrastructure to provide feedstock to the biofuel industry. Because the SFPUC produces yellow grease, brown grease, and biosolids, and the City uses 5.5 million gallons per year of B20 to power its entire diesel fleet, San Francisco serves as a model to other municipalities of how they can offer the biofuel industry feedstock, waste disposal options,and a long-term stable customer.

The used cooking oil collected by the SFGreasecycle program is gathered at the SFPUC's Southeast wastewater treatment plant before being sold to industry, then purchased back for use in the City's diesel fleets. At the SFPUC's Oceanside wastewater treatment plant, grease trap waste collection trucks can drop off waste for a reduced tipping (disposal) fee. This waste is heated and separates out as 97% high-strength wastewater and 3% brown grease. The brown grease is then sold. The water, which is highly fortified with organics, is used to boost both the quality and quantity of anaerobic digestion. Biomethane, a byproduct of digestion, is used to generate electricity, which reduces the plant's energy use. Biosolids, the final product of the digestion process, are currently all disposed of as alternative daily cover at landfills or applied to land as a soil amendment, a practice that continually struggles with public acceptance.

Ben shares a vision with many forward thinking people in his field of how the City can move from using biosolids to make low quality soil amendments to using them to make low-carbon fuel. Karri Ving, who has been the head of SFGreasecycle since its inception, is working on that front by representing the SFPUC on the Bay Area Biosolids to Energy Project, a regional coalition consisting of nineteen local agencies working toward the goal of converting biosolids to electricity and drop-in road fuels.

In addition to his work with the SFPUC, Ben served on San Francisco's Biodiesel Access Task Force, which reported to city officials and the mayor on local efforts to facilitate the use of biodiesel. Ben has consulted for various cities around the country and for the government of El Salvador on their biodiesel projects focused on purchasing oil from farms, doing local conversions, and running local trash trucks. He continues to work for Design Ecology, a sustainable engineering and architecture firm, as well.

On its website, the SFPUC calls Biofuel Recycling its "Behind-the-Scenes Partners" and posts bios of SFGreasecycle program staff, including Ben and his colleagues Trevitt Schultz, Joshua Burbridge, and Wesley Caddell. With Ben at the helm, these four men are a beloved Bay Area biodiesel institution and some of the hardest working folks in our industry. They deserve special thanks for their years of commitment to the biodiesel cause!