The In’s and Out’s of Recycling Cooking Oil

Like most people, you probably use at least a small amount of oil, lard (tallow) or another form of kitchen grease in your cooking. Unfortunately, leftover cooking oil and kitchen grease
tossed in the trash go on to produce methane gas in our landfills.

Aside from clogging your veins, oil and grease sent down the drain can also clog your pipes, back-up sewage lines and attract vermin. It’s not exactly “appetizing.”

Biodiesel

One alternative is to convert your leftover fat into an alternative fuel. Biodiesel is a biodegradable and nontoxic fuel that can be made from whatever form of oil with which you typically cook. Although
most biodiesel fuel is made from grease provided from restaurants, you can search for a drop-off in your area using Earth911. Some biofuel or biodiesel companies will often expand their number of drop-off points around food-related holidays, such as Thanksgiving.

Before dropping it off its important to try to filter out some of those bits of food floating around in the fat, or at least remove the larger pieces. 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.

Other Choices

However, while some states have over 20 biodiesel fuel production facilities, others do not. In fact, there may not be anywhere to take your oil in your state, let alone your area. The good news? Here’s a list of just a few ways to reuse your cooking oil:

• Use leftover lard, tallow, or animal shortening (all essentially the same substance) to make your own suet for feeding wild birds.
• Replace toxic lighter fluid with used cooking oil.
• Put some of the oil on the newspaper at the bottom of a chimney for faster lighting of the coals the fireplace or grill.
• You can filter out food particles and fry with the oil once again, but make sure that your cooking temperature is at least 190° Celsius.

Remember, whether you choose to recycle or reuse your old oil and grease, be sure to try reducing as well. When you cook with less fat, the environment and your body will both have reason to thank you.