AN eastern Perth eco-entrepreneur says surrounding industries have launched a vendetta against his budding biofuel business.
Robin Penfold will tonight ask the City of Swan to retrospectively approve his biodiesel plant in the industrial suburb of Bellevue, near Midland.
Since 2006, Mr Penfold has made biodiesel and assembled electric bicycles - without planning approval - at his James Street warehouse.
"If I need permission from my neighbours to work then that will never happen as there has been a vendetta against my presence since I moved in here by most of my neighbours barring perhaps two," he has advised Swan council.
"The situation with my neighbours is dire.
"I have been inspected on multiple occasions by every relevant government department in Perth and never has there been any validity to any of the complaints."
Neither the Department of Environment and Conservation nor Department of Mines and Petroleum have objected, but the council has received nine complaints from nearby landholders.
One neighbouring business said that odour from Mr Penfold's warehouse affected custom, to the point of making clients want to vomit.
Mr Penfold denied this, saying he always kept lids on his biofuel bins.
Biodiesel burns up to 75 per cent cleaner than fossil-fuel petroleum diesel.
It is typically made by chemically-reacting vegetable oil with methanol.
Tonight, Mr Penfold will ask the council to let him continue making his 3000-litre batches of biodiesel and a degreaser byproduct, and assemble electric-powered bicycles on site.
In his planning application, Mr Penfold reveals his biofuel recipe.
"To make the biodiesel I collect waste vegetable oil from hotels, restaurants etc," he said.
"It's then coarsely filtered and heated to 50 degrees centigrade after which I add Potassium Methylate and stir for two hours.
"The Potassium Methylate breaks the vegetable oil molecule into 2 parts – Methyl Esters (biodiesel) and Glycerol.
After two hours of mixing, Mr Penfold leaves the concoction to settle overnight.
"The heavy glycerol falls to the bottom and the biodiesel floats on top," he said.
"The glycerol layer is removed and the biodiesel is passed through a centrifuge to clean it of any impurities and is then ready to use in any diesel engine."
He maintains the only waste from the process is food scraps after filtering the oil, which he discards into his weekly wheelie bin collection.
Mr Penfold said he had never applied for planning approval, because he was initially ahead of his time.
"I contacted the council several years ago when I started making biodiesel at home, but at the time Council didn't know what biodiesel was," he advised.
"When I bought my unit in 2006 I didn't realise that working in my own industrial premises could be unauthorised.
"There is a growing band of people nowadays who make their own fuel and some councils in recent years have been approving the manufacture of biodiesel for personal use from residential premises, for example, the Town of Cottesloe, as it has realised that biodiesel is not a horrible polluting product."
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