Yes, You Can Recycle Cooking Oil
One search on Google News and you’ll find cooking oil recycling is a legitimate trend for communities around the nation.
While it may seem harmless, pouring the oil from your deep-fried turkey down the drain can harm wildlife and wreak havoc on local sewage systems.
Plan ahead when planning to recycle. Don’t wait until you have a pan of leftover oil to dump. Make a designated waste oil container, label it and put it somewhere everyone in your home can easily access. Photo: Flickr/_e.t
Grease clings to pipes in small particles that latch onto each other, collecting until the mass is large enough to block sewage lines.
If you’re not collecting your excess grease in a cup beside the stove for later use (just like Grandma!), chances are your drain has some substantial clumps. In fact, cooking oil and kitchen grease is the No. 1 cause of clogged sewer pipes.
But there’s another option for disposing of cooking oil: alternative fuel. While many commercial facilities already contribute substantial supplies, some programs invite households to recycle their excess grease as well.
Some biofuel or biodiesel companies will often expand their number of drop-off points around food-related holidays, such as Thanksgiving, so take advantage.
It is best to put your oil into a tightly sealed container. If planning to recycle, please be sure not to mix any water with the oil. Before dropping off your oil, it is important to try to filter out some of those bits of food floating around in the fat.
Sound gross? It’s not as bad as having to clean out your drains later. Eww…
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
Daily News—12/01/09 - Blog - Site Root - BioDieselNow - Renewable biodiesel fuel
posted on December 1st, 2009 at 3:57 am
[...] The fine art of recycling waste vegetable oil for use in biodiesel production [...]
monkey moe
posted on December 1st, 2009 at 11:22 am
nice!!!
Daily News—12/01/09
posted on December 1st, 2009 at 6:01 pm
[...] The fine art of recycling waste vegetable oil for use in biodiesel production [...]
Ken Larson
posted on December 2nd, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Hello Amanda,
Excellent article! Looking for a place in Lancaster CA where I can drop off cooking oil for recycling. Would love to here from you on this.
Rule Allowing Burning of Hazardous Waste May Be Overturned - Earth911.com
posted on December 8th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
[...] Emissions Comparable Fuels (ECF) rule took effect on Jan. 20, 2009, allowing industries to burn fuel that would otherwise be regulated as hazardous waste, but that generates emissions comparable to [...]
Triskelion
posted on December 22nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
If I cook poultry in cooking oil and then store it and reuse it for somethign else won’t there be harmful bacteria that I need to worry about?
Btw you can also use cooking oil as an oil lamp! :)
Maurizio Maranghi
posted on January 25th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
My colleague recycles her oil and dumps it right into her car. I am so jealous! Granted, I am in a Hybrid, but talk about reduce, reuse, recycle…wow!
- Maurizio Maranghi -
Julia
posted on January 28th, 2010 at 9:31 am
I live in Miami, FL. How can I find a local place to drop off the oil?
donah
posted on March 1st, 2010 at 8:48 am
I am 65 yrs old, and growing up, we use to put a little of the cooking oil on the dogs food ( its good for their hair to make it shiny) an to help clean them out occasionally. We also used a thin dishcloth and poured it into another container to clean it out a few times. You may need help with this from a friend to recycle the oil. We use $40.00 of oil in our deep fryer to cook a turkey (3 min per pound of turkey and its good)… But I hate to dispose of all the amount of oil? Is it possible to pour it in the ground over the weedy part of your garden???? thanks, Donah
Lee
posted on July 29th, 2010 at 7:22 am
I live in the Flint, Michigan area and am looking for a place that accepts used cooking oil. Where can I find such information? I cannot find it online anywhere.
Thanks,
Lee Eck
Dave
posted on October 6th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
I take it to the nearby charbroiler burger joint and ask them if I can pour my oil into their oil drums. Soembody comes and takes that oil away.
recycle
posted on October 6th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Local restaurants might take them. They normally have a big oil container in the back. It gets collected every week and the restaurants get pay for it.
Barbara Perino
posted on October 7th, 2010 at 5:14 am
I live in Westerly, RI and am a director of Westerly Innovations Network. We have a team of middle school students who started Project Turn Grease Into Fuel. They sign up restaurants to donate their waste cooking oil and have established residential waste cooking collection sites at two municipal landfills. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the grease goes to our nonprofit organization. The grease is turned into biofuel. We in turn, donate it to charities who qualify families for heating oil assistance. You can do this in your communities. It helps solve several community problems – clogged sewers, financial assistance to families and eliminates CO2 from the atmosphere! Check out our website and contact us!
Sandra
posted on October 7th, 2010 at 6:02 am
I store my bacon grease in a jar in the frig. I than use it to fry tomatoes, or put a little in my green beans, brown my beef for beef stew, etc. It adds flavor. You would be surprised to find you can add just a little to a lot of different things.
ethayer
posted on October 7th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
We save our cooking grease and make soap out of it. Easier than you’d expect, and soap for our laundry now costs about a penny per load, or less.
ostwald
posted on October 19th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
i’m right now doing an assignment about this issue.now we can turn waste to wealth.!