Australian landscape company produces its own biodiesel

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Scania Press Release / October 14, 2015

Australian raw material and landscape supplier Peats Soil, which has developed its own biofuel plant together with Adelaide University, is to fuel its newly purchased fleet of 13 Scania trucks with its own-made biodiesel.

Peats Soil Managing Director Peter Wadewitz says he aims to produce the bulk of what his fleet of trucks and loaders will consume annually.

“The first batch of 1,000 litres is now in production,” Wadewitz says.

“We collect residual wash-down water from food preparation and manufacturing locations,” he explains. “We call it ‘dirty water’. From this we extract the fats we use as the base stock of the biodiesel.”

Unique biodiesel manufacturing facility

Peats Soil has progressed from proving the concept in a laboratory to building a new biodiesel manufacturing facility at its head office.

“As far as we know there is only one other plant like this in the world, in the United States,” Wadewitz says.

Creating new jobs

The company hopes to produce 1 million litres of biodiesel a year, all of which will be consumed by its fleet of trucks and loaders that are used in the yard to load the trucks with organic garden products.

“We have ordered 13 trucks from Scania that will run on 100 percent biodiesel,” Wadewitz says. “These trucks will replace our existing Scania fleet, and we are adding two more trucks and two more loaders. This means we will be creating four new jobs for drivers plus adding staff for the laboratory.”

Australia’s probably lowest carbon dioxide-emitting fleet

Scania will supply Peats Soil with 480 hp six-cylinder trucks and some V8-powered 560 hp prime movers, which will be used to collect waste material and to deliver bulk and bagged organic supplies once they have been processed at the plant.

“Scania already produces some of the most fuel-efficient heavy trucks available in Australia, but the switch to biodiesel will make this one of the lowest-CO₂-emitting fleets in Australia,” says Alfons Reitsma, Regional Executive Manager for Scania in South Australia.

Biodiesel produces up to 80 percent less CO₂ than regular diesel.

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