That pimply faced teenage fry cook at McDonald’s will soon be serving up more than a greasy treat. The oil that clogs your arteries and sizzles your fries will soon be used to power McDonald’s trucks. The fast food giant has decided to start powering its trucks on biodiesel made from its own waste oil.

Don’t expect to smell the sweet smell of french fries heading down the highway just yet, McDonald’s plans on running 155 of it’s delivery trucks on biodiesel made from its own cooking oil, but only in the UK.

The red and yellow bloater of waste lines, currently runs its UK trucks on B5 (95% diesel and 5% biodiesel), will initially use a blend of 85 per cent biodiesel and 15 per cent rapeseed oil.

The move is most likely a result of the pounding groups like Greenpeace have been giving the company over the years. A year ago, after a sustained campaign by Greenpeace, McDonald’s agreed to stop using soya from newly deforested land in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. This year, it started selling coffee certified by the Rainforest Alliance in its UK restaurants, a move that it says boosted sales by 10 per cent. Just goes to show you, give the customer what they want and your profits will go up.

Matthew Howe, manager of McDonald’s UK supply chain, said the cost of using biodiesel was expected to be the same as the restaurant group’s diesel costs in the long term. “In the short term, we think it will cost a little bit more,” he said, adding this extra cost could amount to “a couple of pennies a litre”.

It’s a pretty good idea from a logistics standpoint, they currently throw out about 6 million liters of cooking oil every year, and use about 6.1 million liters of diesel in their trucks every year. I wonder why they didn’t make this mental leap sooner. The home of the scary clown will collect oil from 900 of its 1,200 UK outlets each week, take it to a separation tank in East Anglia, and then on to a biodiesel conversion plant in central England.

McDonald’s said the net effect of the scheme would be a 78% reduction in its carbon emissions. The smell of McDonald’s delivery trucks pumping out the rather hard to ignore smell of french fries will also most likely result in an increase in McDonald’s fry sales. So a double bonus for the company.

Francesca DeBiase, McDonald’s chief supply chain officer said the group’s European operation was an “early warning system” for the US.

We might be soon seeing biodiesel McDonald’s trucks scooting around the streets of America. Let’s hope so.