CONCORD – A year ago, Sarandis Karathanasis was paying to have the spent oil from his fryers taken away from The Red Blazer. But now, the used vegetable oil has a different destination -- the boiler system of his Manchester Street restaurant.

Although his operation goes through only about 50 gallons of oil a week, it is paying off in spades for the restaurant, of which Karathanasis is a co-owner. Not only does he not have to pay to get rid of the grease anymore, his costs for natural gas have dropped $350 to $400 per month. In 3 1/2 years, the multi-fuel boiler installed at the eatery will have paid for itself.

"That's really the big piece of this. Ten years ago, if you were trying to sell someone saving the Earth, you'd get a boot in the butt. But now we've proved there's viability and payback," said Karathanasis, in an interview at his restaurant.

The boiler system is one of many environmentally friendly actions Karathanasis has taken at The Red Blazer over the past year and a half. They all started with a glass crusher in the kitchen.

Karathanasis learned of the device at a Chicago trade show, and found it solved an immediate problem -- his staff had to lug out heavy bags full of empty glass bottles to the garbage bin in back. That practice had led to a couple of injuries, he said, and the glass crusher -- which pulverizes empties and dumps the remains into a bucket -- solved that problem.

Not having to throw the empties away meant a lot less garbage in the outside bin. That translated to lower costs for hauling it away. As in $8,400 a year lower.

Overjoyed with this success, Karathanasis began looking at other ways to conserve. He switched out the restaurant's light bulbs. He installed a new dishwashing system that saves on water and electricity, helping reduce his power bill substantially. When he was once paying $8,000 a month for electricity, this past month he paid just $5,500 -- in the height of summer, with its consequent need for air-conditioning inside the restaurant.

The dishwashing system will pay for itself in less than a year. He also invested in making his generator run on vegetable oil, along with the multi-fuel boiler.

The multi-fuel boiler's backup power supply is natural gas, so if necessary, it can burn that in place of vegetable oil. But instead of having his staff carry the used grease out to a storage tank, where a rendering firm would pick it up and haul it away, it instead heads straight to a collection vat in the basement. From there, it is piped to the boiler unit.

"We don't have to handle the hot grease ... it goes right into our holding tank downstairs and right into our boiler," Karathanasis said.

The combination of the economic and conservation benefits, he said, made it a "no-brainer" for businesses. And that, he said, led to another opportunity.

The restaurant owner bought a stake in the small company which helped him install the burner. American Energy Independence Co. LLC, known as Amenico, owns the New England distributorship for multi-fuel burners produced by KingBuilt Inc. of Wisconsin. It also holds the New England distributorship for Golden Fuel Systems, a company that converts cars to run on vegetable oil. It also provides consulting services for companies that want to reduce their energy costs.

One big advantage to the boiler systems is that they burn a variety of fuels, according to Tony Giunta, Amenico's president. They burn heating oil. They burn vegetable oil. They can even burn transmission fluid.

"This burner will burn all of these and burn them in the same tank," said Giunta.

The first part of Amenico's plan involves the cooperative buying of vegetable oil for restaurants, allowing eateries to buy it cheaper than they could elsewhere. Amenico will then recapture spent oil and refine it, turning it into fuel for a variety of uses. Its refinery in Pittsfield to do that should be up and running in about a month's time.

The refined fuel will then be sold back to the restaurateurs, who could then use it for home or business heating, auto fuel or other uses.

The potential market for refined vegetable oil fuel is huge, according to Giunta.

For instance, with billions of gallons of No. 2 heating oil used to heat New England homes each winter, vegetable oil could serve as a potential replacement. If refined into fuel for vehicles, it costs about half what diesel would cost, and takes a lot less energy to refine than ethanol, Giunta said.

In New Hampshire, a lot of waste vegetable oil is taken via truck to storage tanks on the Seacoast, Giunta said. The oil then is transferred to ships which take it to Europe, where it is turned into animal feed and used in making products such as cosmetics. Keeping the waste oil here means a lot less energy is used transporting and disposing of it.

"We're not taking it off the continent. We're not taking it thousands of miles. We're keeping it local," Giunta said.

Of course, there are lots of ecological benefits, too, when it comes to these new systems. At The Red Blazer, for instance, the boiler unit will prevent 16 tons of carbon-dioxide emissions annually.

The multi-fuel burner at The Red Blazer was Amenico's first installed boiler. The start-up has since sold several more, and will be installing them over the next couple of weeks, Giunta said.

Now that conservation isn't simply about doing the right thing, but also about saving money, it leads both Giunta and Karathanasis to believe the market for eco-friendly fuel systems is ready to take off. "These are not technologies that need more development. These are not technologies that need more science. These are technologies available right now to help us get through this energy crisis," Giunta said.