PHILADELPHIA: After a good meal, how about asking the head waiter if you can take the waste grease from the kitchen to fuel your car? In the search for sustainable and non-polluting alternatives to fossil fuels, a small band of ecologically minded people are turning to vegetable oil and recycled restaurant grease to run their cars, trucks and even home-heating systems.

Entrepreneurs, some backed by public funds, are proving cars can be run on low-cost materials that are a readily available alternative to environmentally damaging fossil fuels.

One driver, Scotsman Antony Berretti, is so keen on the technology that according to his website he spent three months driving his home-converted Fiat van all the way around Europe powered by waste vegetable oil scrounged from restaurants.

“Fancy driving across Europe for free? Fuel cost zero?” is the intriguing proposition at http://www.macharsoft. co.uk/rmp/freefuel.html.

In Easthampton, Massachusetts, Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems makes conversion kits for cars to run on vegetable oil.

The company has sold about 3,500 kits during its nine years in business, and says sales have been doubling annually in the last few years.

The kits are priced between $800 and $2,000 and users typically get used vegetable oil from local restaurants that are happy to give it away because they usually have to pay for disposal.

With the increasing popularity of vegetable oil as a motor fuel, a small industry of conversion kit installers has grown up, and some also supply the oil for their customers.

RESTAURANT GREASE: The company aims to provide a commercial alternative to petroleum-based diesel that can be produced and consumed close to the source of the grease without needing long-distance trucking of fuels, as with some soy-based biodiesel.