Espoo, Finland, Nov. 23, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Americans consume over 46 million turkeys every Thanksgiving. What if waste fat from turkey roasting could also fuel up our cars? Believe it or not, there's already a way to make it happen.

The world's leading renewable fuel producer Neste has the technology to turn excess cooking fat into renewable fuel. This Christmas they are asking Finnish households to collect their cooking leftovers for fuel production. Their goal is to produce enough renewable fuel from food waste to enable a private car to travel three times around the globe.

According to Neste's calculations, the waste fat of roasting one turkey or baking one ham converts to roughly two miles driven in a private car. The fact that Finns eat over 15 million pounds of ham every Christmas makes the goal eminently attainable.

"Producing fuels from waste and residue is the responsible and sensible thing to do. In this way, greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by as much as 80 percent when compared with conventional fossil diesel," says Matti Lievonen, the CEO of Neste.

If driving a waste fat powered car has already been made possible by a company in a small country like Finland, just think of the possibilities it holds in America: 200,000 tanks filled with excess waste that would otherwise get tossed away after just one Thanksgiving celebration.

If that's not the best way to show gratitude to the environment on Thanksgiving, nothing is. Maybe next year, America?

Neste Corporation

Osmo Kammonen
Senior Vice President, Communications and Brand Marketing

Further information

Osmo Kammonen, Senior Vice President, Communications and Brand Marketing, tel. +358 50 458 4885, osmo.kammonen(at)neste.com

Video: Transforming waste fat from Thanksgiving turkeys into renewable fuel

More about the project: www.neste.com/preorderthefuture/diesel-from-waste/

Photos for media use

Neste in brief

Neste (NESTE, Nasdaq Helsinki) creates sustainable choices for the needs of transport, businesses and consumers. Our global range of products and services allows customers to lower their carbon footprint by combining high-quality renewable products and oil products to tailor-made service solutions. We are the world's largest producer of renewable diesel refined from waste and residues, and we are also bringing renewable solutions to the aviation and plastics industries. We want to be a reliable partner, whose expertise, R&D and sustainable practices are widely respected. In 2015, Neste's net sales stood at EUR 11 billion, and we were on the Global 100 list of the 100 most sustainable companies in the world. Read more: neste.com/en