People, planet and then profit. That's the order in which the guys over at Summit Greasecycling prioritize the business — a bit of an about-face from the usual money-first attitude of most companies.

“It's a model we're trying to prove,” said Dara Lor, founder and president of the company. Business partner Dan Fernandez said to them, it seems like the only way to have a sustainable business.

“We're just doing the real good thing, not the feel good thing,” Fernandez said.

Summit Greasecycling picks up used vegetable oil from restaurants — for free — which the guys then dump into a big tank to filter out any food remnants and impurities. In the winter, they collect roughly 5,000 gallons of oil from 200 restaurants around Summit, Eagle and Gunnison counties. Approximately 95 percent of the stuff they get goes down to Boulder to be converted to biodiesel, while the rest is used to make herbal soap, which they've turned into a business of its own: Summit Soap. The guys also produce a de-greaser and more recently, a beard conditioner for men (not made from used vegetable oil, Lor said, but some of the essential oils used to make the soap).

Essentially, “every molecule of (the vegetable oil) has a place,” Lor said.

And that's the idea: recycle as much as possible to benefit the community, the planet, and then hopefully make a few bucks to keep it all going. But it hasn't been easy.

Now in the business' fifth year, Lor said the current success depends on how one measures achievement: is it through idealism, profit or from a humanitarian angle? Fernandez said Greasecycling could be making 25-30 percent more in profit than it does, but that would mean selling out the business principles. Some of their competitors — including large, national corporations — ship their fuel wherever they can make the most moola, or sell it for other uses, like adding a shine to cheap dog food. The guys at Greasecycling want everything to stay local, so all their fuel is kept in Colorado. The hope is that eventually, they can create a “closed loop,” according to Justin Gauvin, who joined Lor and Fernandez in their efforts a year ago. For example, collecting the oil from local restaurants and selling the soap back to the establishments, and making sure it's on hotel sinks. There's one hotel in Fairplay that already does it. Or, shipping excess soap to an organization called Clean the World, which sterilizes leftover bars and scraps and rebatches them before distributing to impoverished countries. The guys already take donations so they can ship out the excess. Buying the soap is giving back to the environment, Gauvin said. On Summit Soap's website, they write that the only way to generate change and progress in the world is to embody the difference they want to see.

“When I feel like people care, I feel very successful,” Lor said.

As far as profit goes, right now it's not much by some people's standards. But, Lor said they're almost to a point where “we're ready to pop.” They need to bring it to the next step: Hire more people so they can amp up production and grow the companies. Currently, the owners spend half the month on the road collecting the oil and driving it to Boulder. But, it's the age-old problem of the chicken and the egg: in order to hire more employees, they need more money. And in order to bring in more funds, the company needs to grow.

“Every penny we spend is for growing the business,” Lor said. For him, the making of the biodiesel and soap have always been the easiest parts.

Growing and surviving

Fernandez said because Greasecycling has been able to grow and survive, it's a success. When Lor first started, he thought because it was community-oriented it would be prosperous right away. He was motivated but naive, although he thinks his ignorance was a good thing. Five years ago they were “pushing an elephant up a mountain,” but if they knew then what they know now, Lor said they could have had Greasecycling to its current state in five months.

“We're spread less thin now,” he said.

One of the problems was competition: larger companies offering to pick up Summit restaurants' oil for free — which they only started to do after Lor did — and another was perception. Lor said he was cast off by some as a hippie or ski bum that would lose interest in the business as soon as Phish came rolling through. And then there was regulation. The use of the word “fuel” brought unwanted connotations, so Lor had to make it clear it was only vegetable oil.

“Technically, we're sort of in the fuel biz, but our fuel is edible,” he said.

While those hurdles have passed, now it's a matter of participation. They never had a marketing budget — Gauvin has experience in advertising, so he's helping with social media — because Lor said sending out 500 promotional letters seemed counteractive to the business agenda. He was only just convinced to make CDs about the business, although Lor adds that they're all rewritable, so they can easily be recycled.

And despite tribulations over the past few years and more hard work ahead, Lor said he feels great about where they're at. They don't care about being millionaires so long as they're doing something good. Right now, the guys are giving 25 percent of the proceeds from each bar of “go pink and don't stink” to Ellen's Heart and Soul, a nonprofit organization that offers a higher quality of life to breast cancer patients. They're also raising money through kickstarter.com in order to buy more soap equipment, up production and hopefully, help “close the loop.”

“We're dreamers,” Lor said. “It's worth taking 50 chances if one of them works.”