Creston Witte, who is 24, collects used restaurant cooking oil and makes it into biodiesel to run the electricity, heating and cooling in his custom metalworking and sign-making shop. So far, he collects vegetable, canola and olive oil -- anything nonpetroleum -- from five restaurants: Lidia's downtown; the Trimble Deli and the Country Kitchen in Trimble, Missouri; Lowman's CafŽ in Smithville; and the Minsky's Pizza on Highway 7 in Blue Springs. He paid $6 each for the barrels he's installed in those restaurants' kitchens, and he has stickered them with signs that read: "This restaurant cares about the environment. This oil goes to make recycled fuel in Kansas City." The biodiesel-fueled generator keeps the lights on and runs Witte's power tools while he fashions signs and works of art that end up in people's homes and in front of businesses in Platte City, Smithville, Bethany and Springfield. Witte got the idea from a Web site called Journeytoforever.org, but you won't find him wearing a hemp necklace. "I'm more of a tie kind of guy," he says. "Because you have to sell the artwork, eventually."
