Waste oil provides fuel for cross-country trip
Manalapan resident, raised on family farm, develops unique process
BY CLARE MARIE CELANO Staff Writer

Three friends who made a cross-country trip in a Mercedes station wagon powered by waste oil stopped to pose for a picture near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. From left, they are Anthony Bianco, Ryan Liszak and Michael Lazewski.

MANALAPAN - The idea of a couple of young men from Manalapan embarking on a cross-country road trip may not be so unique. But young men on a road trip driving a 1983 Mercedes Turbo station wagon powered by vegetable oil?

That's something completely different.

The idea of the trip was to bring awareness to the fact that biofuel, which is made from soy beans and corn, can get you where you need to go if you have a diesel engine vehicle.

The idea was the brainchild of Michael Lazewski, 26, with support from his buddy, Anthony Bianco Jr., 27. Both men are graduates of Manalapan High School and planned the trip for a year.

Lazewski wears several hats on a regular basis, including actor, business owner and farmer (he grew up on a 128- acre family farm in Manalapan). At least two of those three occupations led him to power his vehicles with vegetable oil.

A year ago Lazewski, who has been featured in national commercials, the soap opera "All My Children" and the 2004 film "Rounding First," and his buddies decided to fly to California after he finished shooting the film "Death by Consent."

While in California their plan was to embark on what Lazewski called a "discovery trip." In between sightseeing and "discovering" themselves, Lazewski discovered much more than he expected.

At one point he came across a man who was powering a vehicle with vegetable oil. Fascinated and intrigued by the concept of biofuel, Lazewski visited a biofuel processing facility on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood where, he said, "magic and dreams have often been made."

He then used his ingenuity and knowledge of mechanical engineering (working on farm engines), did a bit of Internet research and declared he could do it, too.

After returning home and realizing he had an entire field of potential energy on his family's farm, Lazewski began to piece together ideas to create a filtration system using waste oil from Peking Pavilion, Manalapan, and converting it to biofuel to power his own vehicles.

Sounds crazy, but he did it.

Lazewski said he and Bianco have worked on the project for several reasons, among them: vegetable oil becomes a clean, energy-efficient fuel source and makes for a cleaner America; it reduces carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and helps to decrease the effects of global warming; it reduces the country's dependence on foreign oil. An added bonus, according Lazewski, is that "it brings back the American farmer."

He said the diesel engines run on compression and a regular gasoline powered engine runs on ignition. Lazewski said he made a small modification to the fuel system in order to allow it to compress vegetable oil.

There has been a good deal of talk about the use of corn to produce Ethanol, which can also power vehicles, but according to Lazewski, that is not what he is doing. He said his product is safe and noncombustible.

Lazewski is using a filtration system to purify vegetable oil for use as energy fuel, not to be confused with other types of alternative energy such as biodiesel, which requires the addition of alcohol or methanol in the process and creates a hazardous situation that Lazewski's method avoids.