CARRABASSETT VALLEY – The Sugarloaf ski resort is expanding a program to run its off-road vehicles on a fuel that includes cooking grease.

Sugarloaf has bought 500 gallons of biodiesel fuel that came from restaurant waste vegetable oil. The fuel will be mixed with 10,000 gallons of diesel and will be used to run shuttle buses, grooming equipment and other off-road vehicles.

A Sugarloaf ski patrol employee collected the vegetable oil from the resort’s restaurants during the winter and took it to Bean’s Commercial Grease in Vassalboro, producers of GreenBean Bio Fuel.

The biodiesel project is part of Sugarloaf’s effort to be environmentally friendly.