home-brew biodiesel is fuel of the future

Every few weeks Gordon Elliott drives 22 miles to the Hare and Hounds pub in Marple, Cheshire, collects a barrel of waste cooking oil from his stepdaughter and takes it back to his personal oil refinery in his garage

The retired construction site manager then decants the liquid into a machine and adds a few chemicals.

Twenty-four hours later the waste oil has been purified, filtered and refined and is ready to be used in one of his family's two diesel cars.

Companies making biodiesel "reactors" report booming sales and demand for cheaper diesel is outstripping anything they can produce.

David Taylor of Ecotec Resources, the Lancashire company which sold Elliott his machine and which also makes 100,000 litres a year of recycled fuel.

He is selling 15-20 biodiesel machines a week and has sold 800 in under a year to taxi firms, hauliers, restaurants and others.