NICOSIA (Reuters) - Scientists in Cyprus have enlisted children to help recycle used cooking oil into biofuel under an initiative that has received international acclaim.

The "Tiganokinisi", or frying pan, initiative visits schools in a caravan, performs scientific experiments and encourages children to bring in used cooking oil from their homes that is then collected, filtered and sold on to be used as biodiesel.

The aim is for Cyprus to do its part to tackle a major global problem, which sees millions of litres of used cooking oil thrown away each year, often clogging drains, sparking fires in landfills or contaminating underground water deposits.

"The logistics are huge to collect this half-litre of cooking oil from (each of) our houses," said Xenia Loizidou, chair of the AKTI Project and Research Centre, a local NGO involved in environmental education that coordinates the collection of the oil to be sold on as biofuel.

"We came up with this concept where the schools become hubs of collection," she said.

Proceeds are divided among participating schools, depending on how much oil they donated, and children have a say on what green projects receive the money, Loizidou said.

More than 550,000 euros ($572,935) has been provided for projects including photovoltaic panels in schools, water fountains and aromatic gardens.

The project, backed by the Cypriot education ministry, became part of the national curriculum in 2018 and now engages more than 80,000 schoolchildren a year.

It has received awards from the European Commission as one of the EU's best practices in social innovation and from European education body GENE for exemplifying quality in global education.

The project got a boost in 2021 when U.S. energy major Chevron stepped in to wholly finance the cost of the caravan, which employs young scientists and has visited more than 500 schools.

"We want to be a positive partner in any of the communities we operate in... We quickly realised this was a great fit for us," said Kristian Svendsen, Chevron regional manager for Egypt and Cyprus.

From an estimated 2,000 tonnes of domestic cooking oil used in Cyprus annually, about 10% is collected, Loizidou said.

"We want the children to know waste is not waste. Waste has value, and this is the whole concept of a circular economy," said Loizidou.

($1 = 0.9600 euros)

(Reporting by Michele Kambas and Yiannis Kourtoglou; Editing by Edward McAllister and Gareth Jones)