Eleven Dartmouth College students visited the Alley Pond Environmental Center (APEC) in Douglaston, on Thursday as part of a 24-state, 12,000-mile cross-country trip.
The travelers, who had just begun their summer vacations, arrived in the “Big Green Bus”, a donated 1998 Greyhound that runs on waste vegetable oil and features appliances that only use solar power and a composter.
The students checked out APEC’s nature trails and gave tours of the bus to a group of roughly 40 interested individuals, emphasizing the importance of grass-roots environmental initiatives. But they were also on hand to fill up their tank with more than 160 gallons of waste vegetable oil donated from Queens entities such as the New York Mets, the Courtyard Marriott JFK Hotel and El Ay Si Restaurant. (New Jersey-based American By-Products Recyclers collected the used cooking oil and recycled it for use as biodiesel.)
To note the occasion, Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall and Councilmember Ruben Wills presented proclamations to the bus riders and APEC. The borough president even declared June 14, which is also National Flag Day, as “Alley Pond Environmental Center’s Big Green Bus Day” in Queens.
After the festivities, the bus went out to Long Island before heading to Hershey, Pennsylvania, on the way to the West Coast.