Pumped up on vegetables

The Brookhaven National Laboratory, usa, is getting new equipment to conduct its latest research. Nothing highbrow though, it is just a garbage truck. The laboratory is going to use vegetable oil in the truck's hydraulic system. The experimental truck will be retrofitted with the technology under the laboratory's pollution prevention program.

Vegetable oil, unlike petroleum- based hydraulic fluid, is biodegradable and an environmentally safer. In the Brookhaven lab eight out of the 21 proposals to reduce waste and emissions by employeees were accepted. While they will cost US $120,000 to implement, the expected return on investment is US $268,000 per year.