The Portuguese social enterprise Oil2Wax is working with recycling in new ways to make people “love their waste”.

The company has developed a powder based on natural ingredients that can be used to make candels out of used cooking oil.

Oil2Wax sell packages of powder and other ingredients, that you need to make candles.

The process is simple: The powder is simply mixed with used cooking oil and boil for a few minutes in a microwave and then provided with wick and maybe dyed and then hardened for 20 minutes . In that way cooking oil is transformed into to beautiful candels.

The company has named their concept “The Greatest Candles in The World”.

Cooking oil that is not handled appropriately is a bigger environmental problem than many realize, as it is one of the main causes of pollution of water. Oil creates a thin surface on water and prevent oxidation, which is fatal to ecosystem flora and fauna.
One liter of oil can contaminate up to 1000 liters of water. 1000 liters corresponds roughly to a European’s consumption of water for 5 days. The problem is overwhelming, if you look at the fact that every year 40 billion liters of oil is consumed in homes worldwide, and nearly half is discarded. It is potentially sufficient to contaminate the whole of the Baltic Sea – for example.

Oil2Wax is working from a philosophy of getting people to “love their waste”, and the method involves people directly in all parts of the recycling chain, thus giving consumers the opportunity to be involved in several stages of the recycling chain and be both the consumer, which throws away as well as the creator of a new product from their own waste and, finally, also the consumer of the recycled product.

As the candels are made of plant-based material and not based on oil as traditionalcandels, they are CO2 neutral. When used cooking oil is transformed into candels the oil is not wasted and thus will not contaminate water.

Oil2Wax has developed a new educational project from its concept, and the company is working to introduce it at national level in schools to spread the company’s recycling philosophy among young people.

If you want ot try to make candels yourself, you can buy the products you need from Oil2Wax’s webshop and find detailed instructions on Oil2Wax’s website.

You can also watch a video about Oil2Was’s candles, here

 

Read more about Oil2Wax on: http://thegreatestcandle.com