Tip: Discarding Kitchen Grease
When I had to take the food handlers course to get certified to work in the soup kitchen, our city’s water company manager did a presentation on the problem of grease in the city’s sewer pipes.
He showed us picture after picture very similar to these:
People dump grease down toilets, flush it down drains, and it all comes together to coagulate in the pipes.
It’s a SERIOUS problem in cities all around the country.
Restaurants can face fines if it’s discovered that they dispose of grease improperly. But restaurants are just part of the problem. I never poured grease down the kitchen sink simply because long ago in my early adulthood, I clogged the sink up with cooking grease. But, until I took this class, I didn’t think twice about flushing grease down the toilet. However, the water from the toilet goes to the same place as the water from my sink, and it flows through pipes and will clog just as easily as it did in my own personal kitchen sink all those years ago.
So now, with that knowledge in hand, I never dispose of grease through the sewer system anymore. Instead, I keep a container — usually an oil container — and pour (cooled) used grease in that.
I just use a funnel to help keep it as mess-free as possible.
When the container is full, I throw it in the garbage can.
If I lived on acreage, as is our ideal, I would probably have a less landfill-minded disposal plan. But for now, this is what works for me.
Keep that clogged city pipe picture in mind the next time you fry chicken, or make doughnuts, or fry some french fries. When it’s time to get rid of your grease, find a way to do it outside of the city’s sewer pipes.
Hallee
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This is an awesome tip! My mom uses old cans, but I think I prefer your jar since it has a lid. :-)
Depending on the grease, some can be re-used. We don’t eat a lot of pork, but we are a bit partial to bacon. I always save my bacon grease and use when frying eggs, cabbage, potatoes, etc. We keep it in an old-fashioned crock.
We don’t eat pork at all. But, I do save my beef bacon grease. I have to keep that in the fridge, though.
we keep the bacon grease to use, but put our other grease in a container and into the garbage. sometimes we dump it on the grass under our pine trees though
If you use a vegetable based oil, couldn’t you just add the used oil to your compost pile?
No. You shouldn’t add oils to your compost pile. Oil will coat everything and it will smother some of the microbes and slow the compost process WAY down. Yes, it is in vegetables naturally, but in a very dilute form.
I never pour grease down my drain. We have a septic system and I don’t think it would be good for it! But even before we lived here, I still didn’t do it. I keep a spaghett sauce jar under the sink and pour it in that. When it’s full, I toss it. Same as you do.
My mom used to have a little metal container shaped kind of like a tea pot that she poured all the grease in. Then when we needed to grease a pan, we used some of the grease from the pan. It had a little strainer that sat on top to catch any chunks. That was before Pam cooking spray!
Did you refrigerate the grease?
The times I’ve tried to save cooking grease, be it oil or fat, it ends up going rancid. I’ve never had great luck with it (of course, I lived in Florida, so maybe it was the climate that was the problem.)
We use our grease to flavor our dogs food and it helps there coat to stay pretty and shinny. One way to recycle and not put in the landfill. Makes them happy and us to.
My dog always gets to help clean the pans or platters – lol.
Thanks for that information!