EPOCA

In just six years, we have built our own green, member/worker-owned biodiesel business, the Empower Energy Cooperative, run by five paid worker-owners. Empower Energy Cooperative collects and transforms waste vegetable oil into useable, earth-friendly biodiesel fuel. We have collected over 1,000 gallons and made contracts with 18 local restaurants. We are currently working on expanding to 500 contracts and the ability to sustain EPOCA financially through a regular contribution from the business’ profits.

Empower Energy Collective recently made its third large sale to the Boston Workers' Alliance. We sold 1,200 gallons of waste vegetable oil to be transformed into environmentally friendly biodiesel fuel (a green alternative to fossil fuels). Meanwhile, we’re continuing to develop our capacity to produce the fuel ourselves, at our Central Massachusetts facility. Our Team Engineer, Scott Guzman just built us a bicycle-powered pump to transfer waste vegetable oil from restaurant receptacles to our collection trucks. Videos will soon be available on the Empower website: http://www.empowercoop.com/. In the past six months we've held two large community workdays. Twenty volunteers came to help clean up our site, consolidate oil and fix the signs in the area. We printed lots of T-shirts for the volunteers. Call Empower Energy Collective at 508-444-2113 for your very own Empower shirt!!

If you are interested in our free waste vegetable oil pickups or in our other services, please see the Empower website: www.empowercoop.com