The Green Spot in Dallas sets up beneficial, eco-friendly partnership

by Jefferson Johnson of The Daily Campus

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Since opening its doors, Green Spot has been partners with the city of Dallas, which brings used grease and oil to the station for reprocessing and sale.

Photo by Jefferson Johnson

Bruce Bagelman, owner of The Green Spot

Several years ago Bruce Bagelman and his wife went out to purchase a new car. They had decided on a diesel engine vehicle because it is more gas mileage efficient.

Bagelman had known about biodiesel fuel and after doing a little research found that it was available, though not widely distributed.

The couple bought a diesel engine Volkswagen with the intent of running it on a blend of biodiesel. But after buying the car and filling it with biodiesel from a Dallas vendor, the vendor stopped offering the fuel. With few other options in town, Bagelman decided he’d open his own biodiesel station offering biodiesel blends as well as other possible alternatives fuels.

And so The Green Spot, a gas station and healthy convenience store, was born. The station opened in February 2008 on North Buckner Boulevard. Much like any other gas station, Green Spot sells all grades of gas. But what makes Green Spot unique is the biodiesel blends it sells.

“If you have a diesel engine you can use biodiesel,” said Bagelman. “One of the obvious reasons you would want to use biodiesel is that it is renewable fuel.”

Biodiesel is created using vegetable oils or animal fats heated and chemically changed to create several byproducts such as soaps, skincare products, and biodiesel.

Biodiesel is also an eco-friendly alternative fuel source, said Bagelman. It benefits the environment by reducing several common diesel engine emissions like carbon monoxide. Biodiesel blends can reduce the percentage of carbon monoxide emissions by as much as 80 percent.

Particulate matter, another type of emission known to cause asthma and breathing problems, can be significantly reduced by using biodiesel as well.

Dave Pennington, a north Dallas resident and regular customer of The Green Spot, said it’s a great way to support American farmers who grow grain instead of the petroleum industry.

“If you got a diesel vehicle come on out,” encouraged Pennington.

Since opening its doors, Green Spot has been partners with the city of Dallas, which brings used grease and oil to the station for reprocessing and sale.

Photo by Jefferson Johnson

The Green Spot is located on North Buckner Boulevard.

“We reached out to partners like The Green Spot, who have an outlet for it and were in the process of making biodiesel,” said Richard Statser, the liquid waste supervisor for the Dallas Water Utilities (DWU).

Three years earlier, the state issued a warning to the DWU because of sanitary sewage overflows (SSO’s), Statser said.

SSO’s occur when city pipes and various wastewater collections backup and overflow into streets, homes and city building, said Statser. SSO’s are not only hazardous because untreated water cause illnesses such as Cholera, but also costly to repair.

According to Statser, fats, oils, and grease (FOG) are major contributors of SSO’s.

“We have 4,300 square miles of pipe under city streets and various other ways to bring waste water to our plant,” said Statser. Oil “creates a problem whenever it clogs the sewage system.”

To solve the problem, the DWU created the “Cease the Grease” campaign and The Green Spot became a local neighborhood grease drop off location.

“Better for the environment all the way around,” said Statser. “Keeps [oils] out of our collection system, but then takes something that was a waste product and turns it into something useful.”

Local environmentalist Jeffery Jacoby, program director for Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE), agrees.

“When you take a used product and use it again then you’re automatically doing the most environmentally friendly thing you can do,” said Jacoby. “Reuse, recycling, giving those resources an extended life is far more sustainable than taking more materials out of the ground and burning them or melting them or processing them into another product.”

Looking for ways to improve upon his idea and increase sales, Bagelman recently added a café to his healthy convenience store. Green Spot offers several organic and natural food and beverage choices. The store also utilizes eco-friendly supplies that are compostable.

“I wanted to cater to people who cared a little more about the foods they ate,” Bagelman said.

The station has also launched its “Grease Movement.” Bagelman said he plans to expand his operation by collecting oil from restaurants, encourage commercial fleets to switch to biodiesel, and hopes with his efforts other gas stations will follow his innovative trend.

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