HONOLULU -- A new program encourages restaurants to turn their cooking oil and grease into cleaner burning energy.

The Cleanway Biodiesel truck parked in front of the McDonalds on Keeaumoku Street to kick off the "Restaurants for Renewables" program.

McDonalds uses a lot of cooking oil for French fries and other fried food, and now it can be made into biodiesel.

Pacific Biodiesel adds alcohol. The glycerin is removed. The oil is cleaned up and then can be used to run vehicles using diesel engines.

"For the environment biodiesel is better because it's got renewable CO2 so the CO2 that gets emitted has been taken in by the plants so it's a renewable cycle. When you burn petroleum something in the ground for millions of years not meant to be in our atmosphere," said Kelly King, with Pacific Biodiesel.

The biggest customer is the city and county of Honolulu.

McDonalds now gets to display decals showing it participates in the Restaurants for Renewables program.

"It wasn't used for anything at all so it was discarded. Now we're so pleased to able to be more environmentally responsible," said Melanie Okazaki, with McDonald's Hawaii.

This renewable fuel is biodegradable, produces less smoke and pollution.