Should every commercial fryer in the country be mapped and plans drawn up to collect all the used cooking oil?

Question

The fuel it would be used to create could power the trucks used to collect it as well as provide a new relatively large source of renewable domestic fuel.

Is making this happen a good way to tap into a currently wasted resource, create green collar jobs from collecting it and building refineries and fuelling stations across the country? Are there any better ideas to start to fully utilize this currently wasted renewable resource more quickly? Wouldn't this be a good part of any energy independence plan?

Answer 1

Great idea!  An interesting fact: diesel vehicles were originally designed to run on peanut oil.  You have to filter the used oil, but it should work fine in any standard diesel engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WVO#Waste_V...

Answer 2

Well, maybe someday but right now we use fossil fuel in vehicles. If we could somehow make cars that would run off of cooking oil, the design would have to be implemented and the public willing to turn over their used cooking oil. The problem is this: in our current time of personal health maintenance, many people use less cooking oil. But you do have a good point but you'd have to get the taxpayers to back you on this costly project.

Answer 3

What to do with your cooking oil

Deep-frying has become a popular way to cook turkeys – but don’t pour that oil down the drain, recycle it!

Recycling your cooking oil is easy

The City of Tacoma Household Hazardous Waste Facility accepts all types of food-based cooking oils such as canola, olive, peanut, vegetable and sunflower at no additional charge. The oil must be strained to remove large food particles. Cooking oil from businesses is not accepted, nor is cooking oil contaminated with hazardous material and/or stored in a container that held hazardous material.

What happens to the oil after I recycle it?

Cooking oil recycled at Tacoma’s Household Hazardous Waste Facility is sent to Darling International, a Tacoma company based in Texas that turns it into raw materials used to make useful products such as pet food, poultry seed, soap, cosmetics, perfumes, antifreeze, glues, cement, inks and more.

Use oil more than once – it’s better for the environment

Electric fryers use gallons of oil – so get as many uses as possible from it. Never let the oil get over 375 degrees. If you do, it's probably going to have to be thrown away.

Grease and your sewer don’t mix

Grease clogs cause 42 percent of sewer blockages in Tacoma – so dispose of your oil correctly. Homeowners are responsible for maintaining the “side sewer” pipe that runs from their homes to the City’s main sewer lines and since these lines clog easier because they are smaller. Troubleshoot your side sewer.

Grease doesn’t belong in the environment

Imagine a duck swimming in a lake with cooking oil from when you deep-fried your turkey. Not a pleasant thought – but it can happen if you let your grease get into a storm drain. Storm drains go directly to the nearby creek or Commencement Bay. Learn more about how you can keep our waterways healthy.

Answer 4

I don't understand why more commercial bio diesel plants aren't popping up.  Restaurants that use deep fryers (from my experience) cannot dispose of the used oil on their own and have to have it picked up anyway.  Why the companies that dispose of the oil do not automatically convert it into clean energy is a concept that I have been trying to understand.  Most people who run their cars on vegetable oil expect a little inconvenience so what an improvement it would be to be able to buy fuel without having to convert it yourself even if it was not from a pump.  I think we are still a little to early in the process for this to become a viable part of a national energy plan, but as the technology and awareness grow, hopefully so will implementation.

Answer 5

It would be a great idea but the people politics probably would think thats its a bad idea and forget about it. It just takes too much time and effort.

Answer 6

Maybe an easier and cheaper way would be to have the consumers of the used fryer oil (drivers) to buy it directly from the fryer operators. When you stop for your burger and fries, you say "check under the hood".

Answer 7

The used cooking oil doesn't work very good in cold weather. Plus companies like Darling International picks up used oil to make into stuff with the rendering byproducts. I think its where stuff like soap comes from.

Answer 8

It would be great but it would cost a lot of money.I think people should put more money into new technologies such as fuel cells and ethonol.

Answer 9

I'd say definitely. There is no reason to waste this valuable resource that, as you said, can be used to power lots of things, reducing our reliance on foreign oil and oil in general. It creates new jobs, reduces our energy reliance, and helps the USA support itself. The one downside is that this will extend our supply of fuel, lowering the motivation to work on creating hydrogen cars or electric cars. If we run out of fuel, we will have to create cars like that, so by extending our fuel source, we are reducing waste, but potentially extending our long-term reliance on fuel.

Answer 10

Just let the market work.  If the grease is that valuable a business will come in and offer the restaurants money.

The fuel would probably not offset the fuel it takes for the resaurant employees to get to work.