PROVIDENCE — Mayor David N. Cicilline joined with leaders of a Newport-based company that turns discarded cooking oil into clean fuel to promote its partnership with 100 Providence restaurants.

At a gathering at Gregg’s restaurant on North Main Street on Wednesday, Chris Benzak, managing partner of Newport Biodiesel, outlined how the business collects used grease from area restaurants and turns it into clean, nontoxic fuel that can run diesel-powered trucks and cars such as ones used by the City of Providence.

Benzak said his enterprise has signed up about a third of the state’s 1,500 restaurants, including restaurants such as Gregg’s, and such venues as the Dunkin’ Donuts Center and Providence Place mall. If all of the restaurants were to participate, he said, the process could generate 1 million gallons of clean fuel each year, making local businesses less dependent on foreign oil.

H. Robert Bacon, the owner of the four area Gregg’s restaurants, said that before signing up with Newport Biodiesel about 18 months ago, disposing of the used grease was usually a headache. While companies would sometimes purchase the grease, he would otherwise pay for its disposal.

Benzak says his company, with six employees, uses its own pump truck to pick up the grease from specially marked storage bins behind each restaurant and processes it at its two-year-old facility on Connell Highway in Newport. The resulting oil can then be used in diesel vehicles with little or no modification, he said.

He says the product is sold to local suppliers for a “few pennies less” than the per-gallon “rack” rate set by larger oil producers and “keeps jobs and dollars in Rhode Island.”

rdujardi@projo.com