What Happens to Cooking Oils When Thrown Out?

Carried Through Waterways

The convenience and irresponsibility of dumping used cooking oil down the drain may result in blockage to your plumbing which can end up in local waterways. Your drain flows water and debris to a waterway carrying your grease with it. Oil forms a thin membrane on water preventing oxygenation. One liter of oil can contaminate up to one million liters of water. Imagine a duck in the waterway immersed in your cooking oil. That is a possibility if your cooking oil is thrown out into the drain.

A small amount of oil can be disposed with regular garbage if it is poured into a plastic container and sealed. However, oil from hotels and restaurants need to be disposed of at a landfill. Your town can provide you with the regulations for proper disposal including which landfills prohibit cooking oil. Before disposing, consider straining through a cheesecloth to filter any particles so that you can get the most use of the oil before disposing.

Some counties are initiating programs for convenient drop off locations for used cooking fat for the festive season when quantities of used oil increase. The programs provide local residents with information encouraging them to properly store cooled oil into a plastic container and transfer the containers to one of several convenient drop-off sites provided. From the containers you are required to pour your used cooking oil into the program's collection containers for proper disposal.

Disposing cooking oil can be a challenge for restaurants. Some restaurants store cooking oil for future disposal which may lead to problems with storage space, vermin and increased insurance liability. Hotel chains "DoubleTree" and "Starwood" and others are outsourcing fryer management for pickup of used cooking oil to be recycled to biodiesel. Other commercial kitchens donate oil to companies who recycle the oil into consumer products.