Today is St. Patrick’s Day so it is no surprise everyone is wearing green, but one Florida school district is going green year-round. Orange County Public Schools’ entire school bus fleet is now running on biodiesel, greatly reducing the district’s use of traditional diesel.
The district’s fleet includes 1,274 buses which are powered by B20, a blend of 80% petroleum diesel and 20% biodiesel.
At its peak usage, OCPS used approximately 2.8 million gallons of fossil-based fuel per year. Since changing to B20 biodiesel however, they report cutting consumption by up to 560,000 gallons per year.
The fleet’s conversion to biodiesel is just one part of Orange County Public Schools’ long-term “Green Fleet” program. The other two tenants of the plan include an anti-idling campaign to reduce fuel use and a capital bus replacement campaign which integrates newer, more fuel-efficient buses with stricter emissions standards into the fleet.
Orange County Public Schools has one of the largest school bus fleets in America and transports around 72,000 students every day.
