A Pilbara-based company that recycles cooking oil from mining camps to make biofuel will now develop cleaning products from glycerol.
The Ashburton Aboriginal Corporation officially launched its subsidiary biodiesel production company, AshOil in 2010 after investigating alternative fuel sources to deal with the rising cost of diesel.
Used cooking oil, biodiesel production is currently collected from Port Hedland, Newman, Karratha, Roebourne and satellite mine camps such as Area C, Hope Downs and West Angeles, and the number of collection points is on the increase.
At present AshOil produces about 10,000 litres of biodiesel each week.
And now the company is looking to make cleaning products from the waste product of the process so it can cut wastage out at its plant, ABC reported.
"We get vegetable waste oil which we turn into biodiesel and then we get the by-product from it, which we're hoping to turn into dust suppressant, truck wash and hand wash,” Piers Austin from AshOil said.
"So there's no wastage of the by-product and all our waste water goes out to the oilseed crop to water the trees."
In addition the company won a supply agreement with Rio Tinto which guarantees the purchase the 5-7,000 litres of fuel for drill and blast operations at the Tom Price mine.
AshOil also has an agreement with ESS that guarantees it can access to 20,000 litres of used cooking oil each year.
The company aim to produce more than 300,000 litres of biodiesel this year, with plans to increase its footprint from the Pilbara region access oil from mining village cooking vats nationwide.
Manager of ASHOIL, Darryl Milburn, said the biodiesel operation is used as a training platform in work readiness for Indigenous trainees.
The AshOil initiative won the Golden Gecko Award for its environmental efforts earlier in September.