Clean transit for beans: yes, really - a coffee distributor's bus runs cheaply on restaurant grease:

 News and Observer: Sept 20, 2005 | JOSH SHAFFER

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

RALEIGH -- It will do 95 on the highway, burning vegetable oil that costs exactly nothing at the pump and leaves a pleasant french-fry smell behind. The veggie bus is the cheerful-colored mascot of Larry's Beans, a Raleigh company that distributes fair-trade coffee around the Triangle.

You've seen it at intersections, all sky blue and chocolate brown with "Smell My Veggie Fumes" written across the back.

Kevin Bobal, the co-owner, bought an old Ford school bus from a dealer in Indiana -- sight unseen. A Missouri company added a second fuel tank just for veggie oil and turned it into a mobile advertisement for alternative fuel.

"Kids point at it," Bobal said. "Kids wave. It's like nonstop circus action."

The bus fits nicely into the earthy Larry's Beans credo: Third World coffee growers get fair pay for their beans, and those beans get delivered in a cheap, gas-free vehicle.

"I want people to know we run on grease," said Larry Larson, the other co-owner. "We met a guy with a pickup and a gun rack, really conservative with a Bush sticker, the sort of person who wouldn't normally be impressed, and he keptasking, 'You really run on grease?' "

Three days a week, Courtney Fowler drops off bags of beans at about 20 coffee shops and restaurants.

When she starts the bus at Larry's Gavin Street warehouse, she runs it on diesel fuel for a few minutes so the thick vegetable oil has a chance to heat up.

Then, about the time she hits Five Points, she throws a toggle switch on the dashboard and goes veggie.

"People are always asking me about it," Fowler said. "They want to know, 'How's the pickup? Does it run as good as a diesel?' I can honestly say it does."

As she drives, she turns up the rap group Digable Planets on the radio -- a comfort that makes up for not having any air conditioning.

"It does have a kickin' sound system," she says, pointing at the bus' four speakers.

The bus gets its oil from local restaurants that would otherwise have to pay to have it hauled off, Bobal said. Chinese buffets provide good, clean oil that's free of heavy batter.

"McDonald's, they just use their grease until it's dead dead dead," Bobal said. "We go with the locals."

The grease gets filtered twice before running through the engine, Bobal said, and it produces the same mileage and horsepower -- without the trademark knocks of diesel fuel.

People stop Fowler at intersections and throw a thumbs-up in the air. She hands them pamphlets on alternative fuel and waves goodbye.

As she parked on Glenwood Avenue on Friday to make a delivery, a man stopped and gawked at the colorful bus. As he went for his morning coffee, he turned around three times to take another look.

That, say the people at Larry's Beans, is the idea.