Diners spent more than $320 billion at quick service restaurants last year, so it’s not a big surprise that those visits produce a ton of used cooking oil. (More than 1,000 tons—or 250,000,000 gallons—a year, to be precise.) It’s leaving restaurant operators with the dirty job of figuring out how to dispose of used cooking oil in a way that doesn’t create too much of a cost or time penalty.
The “easiest” solution? Dumping it down the drain in a commercial sink or into a nearby storm drain. But getting rid of oil this way presents three huge problems that go beyond the legal issues and fines many municipalities impose on those who do this kind of dumping.
You’re Going to Be on a First-Name Basis with Your Plumber
The front-line issue that comes with dumping used cooking oil into drains designed for water? The congealed oil gradually attracts more and more debris, which eventually plugs your system. A plumber will have to come in to get at the root of the problem—and you’re going to want to hope it’s just water that’s overflowing. Since most water and sanitary systems are connected, a plug can also create foul overflows in your restrooms. That’s a recipe for extended downtime—and a loss of customers.
You’re Contributing to a Potential “Fatburg”
Out of sight might mean out of mind, but dumping used cooking oil down the drain doesn’t mean it disappears. Even if the oil makes it to the sewer system, it can be a ticking time bomb for your town’s infrastructure. In London, sanitation crews had the distinctly unpleasant job of breaking up a 130-ton mass of congealed grease that had overwhelmed the city’s sewer system. The
“fatburg” the oil produced looked like something straight out of a horror movie. Dealing with these fatbergs and other used cooking oil-related sewer issues costs cities like San Francisco more than $2.5 million per year. If that isn’t scary enough, those costs get passed on to restaurant owners in the form of registration and other compliance fees.
You’re Wasting Money
It used to be that restaurant operators had to pay garbage haulers to take their vats of congealed grease away to be combined with sawdust and thrown in a landfill or used as an ingredient in cheap animal feed. There are far better options available today, especially in the Northeast. Now, used cooking oil can be repurposed into carbon-neutral heating oil many commercial and educational facilities use in their boiler systems. Recyclers like Massachusetts-based Lifecycle Renewables pay restaurant operators for their high-quality waste cooking oil—turning what was once a nuisance byproduct into a source of revenue.
How big is waste cooking oil recycling? Lifecycle Renewables makes enough recycled heating oil to serve clients like Harvard University and the City of Philadelphia Steam Authority—who have boilers that can consume tens of thousands of gallons of heating oil per hour.
To learn how easy it is to get paid to plug your waste cooking oil into a cycle that produces much cleaner, greener energy, get a no-obligation assessment from our restaurant services team today.
