Mooo-ve over gas guzzlers: This Ontario recycling truck runs on cow poop

Sean Smith is used to the strange looks. For the last year, he's been driving a recycling truck featuring a Holstein cow's behind, emblazoned with the words, "Powered by 100% renewable gas from cow manure."

"It's very eye-catching," said the truck operator with Bluewater Recycling Association, which added the truck to its fleet of forty-three vehicles last summer. After one year as a pilot project, it's now becoming permanent. 

The truck, nicknamed "the poo truck," can be spotted in a number of counties surrounding London, including Huron, Perth, Lambton and Middlesex. 

The most common question he hears is if it actually runs on cow manure. 

The short answer is 'No.' It's symbolic: the overall supply for the fleet includes enough natural gas, generated by cow manure, to operate one truck. 

"It doesn't stink going down the road, either, which is something people always ask about. It smells no different than our other trucks," said Francis Veilleux, president of Bluewater Recycling Association

"It's identical to other trucks in the fleet. Same engine in it, same truck, same everything — except for the graphic on the side — except the source. It actually comes from cow manure."

Truck powered by 100 cows

To power one recycling truck, "we need about 100 cows to produce their daily duties, to be able to satisfy our fuel requirement for that day," Veilleux said. 

By putting manure into a digester, a self-contained unit, the gas is collected and can be used to replace compressed natural gas in the fleet's supply. The remnants can still be spread on the land, but are no longer emitting gases into the atmosphere, said Vielleux. 

Historically, he said, farmers would spread manure on the land to naturally decompose and act as fertilizer, a practice that also released gases into the atmosphere. 

"Our truck is not carbon neutral, it's actually carbon negative. We're removing emissions from the atmosphere."

"Now we're looking at, "How do we make this part of our fleet permanently, and for the entire fleet - just not one truck," he said. 

Looking for manure in the farm belt 

Despite the amount of manure in an agriculturally-rich region, he said securing source material is still difficult. 

Some farm operators, for example, use their own natural gas to generate electricity on-site, rather than pump it into the pipeline. Veilleux said it's also hard to compete with other parts of the country looking to secure their own renewable natural gas supply. 

Beyond turning heads, Veilleux said he's aiming to convert his entire fleet to this source. 

"If we can get the fuel faster here, we will accelerate that and fully move to fuel.