The whole world is familiar with the financial crisis in Greece. Unemployment has reached a percentage of 25% and poverty keeps growing. Besides that prices keep raising, and access to petroleum for heating next winter will be very difficult for some Greeks. I have read an article for a British company which has developed a machine that turns used oils from restaurants to diesel. A liter of diesel nowadays in Greece costs approx. 1 euro and the estimation for next winter will be 1,5 euros/ltr. With this method the diesel costs 0,22 euro/ltr which makes it significantly cheaper for poor people. So my idea is about making a social gas station which will produce bio diesel only for poor, unemployed, sick and handicapped people in Greece. A good side effect of this action would also be to environmentally manage a large amount of used oils which would otherwise be freely disposed to environment.

Problem

Cheap diesel for heating purposes. 25% of the manpower of Greece is unemployed, without calculating the sick and handicapped people who also need access to cheap heating fuel in order to maintain their quality of life.

Solution

My solution is innovative because it uses an environmentally friendly way of turning used kitchen oils to bio diesel. This procedure has two benefits. The benefit of providing cheap fuel for heating and also managing the used oils which would otherwise be thrown freely to the environment thus polluting it. Beneficiaries would have to prove their suitability by showing their taxes records, or in case of sick and handicapped people their health records. In the future a further approach of the unemployment office so they will inform the right people for our station is to be considered. Perhaps the same can happen with the department of health or institutions for people with special needs.

Example

There is a family of 4 persons (2 parents and 2 children aged 3-6 years old). The father is unemployed for more than a year which means he stopped receiving money from unemployment office and his wife works for 4 hours a day in a restaurant gaining approx. 500 euros a month. To heat their home, this family needs approx. 500 euros every winter. If they take biodiesel the heating cost would be approx. 130 euros every winter.

Marketplace

One of the problems I see is the one of the oil companies in Greece. The second is that if this action will be known the request for cheap fuel will be enormous even from people who are not beneficiaries. Perhaps others will follow this idea and competition occurs. The other problem is that many people live in apartment blocks with common heating installations, and someone can be a beneficiary and another one is not. I do not know how to handle this problem.