Without fail, for the next couple of weeks following Thanksgiving my lunch is always a turkey sandwich. No one ever finishes all the Thanksgiving turkey so there’s always a good portion of leftovers in the fridge that slowly disappears as everyone in my family makes a point to include turkey into their meals somehow. By the time the turkey’s all gone, I usually can’t even look at turkey lunch meat for at least a month without feeling sick. However, I feel good knowing I didn’t let any of it go to waste. But compared to the residents of Plano, Texas, I’m letting a good portion of the turkey go to waste: the fat.
Below is a picture of the kind of turkey normally eaten in Texas – deep fried. 
Although this may not be the most healthy way to enjoy one’s Thanksgiving meal, it very well may be the most environmentally friendly. After Thanksgiving, the town of Plano, Texas, among others, collects turkey fat that is created as a result of the deep frying process. Over the past year, 1,200 gallons of fat were collected in Plano alone. 500 of these gallons were received the week after Thanksgiving. This fat is then donated to Biofuel Industries, the first renewable energy-powered plant producing biodiesel fuel in the state of Texas.
Although the current major alternatives to oil right now are coal and natural gas, as has been mentioned in class, turkey fat is on of many alternative biofuels, and as an added incentive it is also a “clean” fuel, as it doesn’t release any carbon emissions.
Although turkey fat may not be a realistic option for replacing gasoline, programs similar to what is done in Plano help to pave the way for other biofuels in the future. So next Thanksgiving, be sure to finish all your turkey, because if you’re not going to use it to help fuel your car, at least make sure none of it goes to waste as food.
wow, this is a very interesting post. I think that this gives hope for the future that we WILL eventually find a reliable fuel source, for even in the most unlikliest of places, citizens, not even scientists, are collecting fuel in an easy fashion. The fact that we can even implement the use of fat in a good thanksgiving meal to run a town is very encouraging and surprising. I give much credit to these citizens, for they have stepped up and taken action to help our world, one turkey at a time.
Cars driven on turkey fat!
One thing is true–biofuels are carbon based (fats are organic compounds) and they DO emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.