Bin lorries could be powered with vegetable oil

Changes to bin lorries have been proposed by a council hoping to reach net-zero

Bin lorries could be powered by vegetable oil as an Essex council tries to cut emissions and reach its net-zero targets.

Uttlesford District Council said it wanted to ditch diesel and has proposed switching to hydrogenated vegetable oil to fuel its bin lorries.

The council said diesel cost £514,252 in 2024-25, and the cost of using the same amount of oil would have been £661,023 – an increase of nearly £150,000 over the year.

Residents for Uttlesford councillor Neil Reeve, portfolio folder for environment and climate change, said the authority wanted to become net-zero by 2030.

Residents were told that council tax would not rise as a result because the scheme had already been budgeted for.

"At the moment, the fleet is using diesel and is responsible for, I believe, 34% of our council's emissions," Mr Reeve told the council's scrutiny committee on June 3, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"This is one of the big target areas. By stopping using diesel and starting to use hydrogenated vegetable oil, that gains us the 34% towards our net-zero goal.

"It's the single biggest thing we can do as a council to reduce our climate emissions."

The council said an alternative would be investing more than £11.5m over the next five years turning it into an electric vehicles fleet.

The committee agreed that it should consider the switch to hydrogenated vegetable oil vehicles.