If you think you can smell a chip shop next time a Forestry Commission van passes, it might have nothing to do with a logger's lunch.
Instead, it might be because the van is running on the cooking oil that fried your last meal of fish and chips. That's because waste cooking oil is being used as motor fuel in the Forestry Commission's continuous drive to brew up more sustainable, environmentally friendly ways of caring for the nation's forests.
The Commission has 160 vehicles using "biodiesel", which is a diesel-like fuel that is refined from vegetable oil, including used cooking oil, and mixed with the usual mineral diesel.
And in the case of one forestry van being used in a trial in northern Scotland, ordinary diesel has indeed had its chips - it's sizzling along nicely on 100 per cent used cooking oil that hasn't even been refined into biodiesel first! And another one in Scotland is doing well in a trial using 100 per cent biodiesel.
As a government department, the Commission is committed to meeting the European Union's targets for use of carbon-neutral biological fuels, or "bio-fuels" - and it is already well ahead of the target. The target for the use of renewable road fuels derived from organic sources is 2 per cent by the end of 2005, and 5.75 per cent by the end of 2010. However, biodiesel already comprises about 15 per cent of the total road fuel bought by the Commission in southern Scotland, 8 per cent over the whole of Scotland, and 5 per cent over the whole of Great Britain.
In fact, says Richard Earle, the sustainability development officer with the Commission's Business Units, which include its Mechanical Engineering Services, things have been ticking over "oil right" so far: "So far, so good," Mr Earle reports. "All our biodiesel-powered vehicles are running well, with no sign of it doing any harm to our engines, and we're delighted to be making this contribution to the 'Greening Government' programme. Richard Earle