I need to get rid of roughly 1/2 gallon of used cooking oil. I would prefer not to trash it because of landfill problems. Does anyone associated with the makerspace recycle cooking oil or turn it into biodiesel?
Thanks!
Swimcoyote
1 Like
I hope someone says yes and turns it into biofuel, but if they don’t, the cease the grease campaign is alive and well in DFW with many sights ready to accept used cooking oils. Map of locations provided here
1 Like
Sadly, this website shows that there are no cooking oil recyclers within 50 miles of plano. It’s why i thought perhaps someone here might be doing it small scale.
Check with your favorite restaurants to see what they do with used oil. They may let you add yours to theirs.
Most restaurants pay a premium to dispose of they’re cooking and vegetable oil from the fryers, so the odds of them allowing you to throw in with them is pretty nil.
Your best options are to either find somebody that makes biodiesel, save up enough used vegetable oil that you can make biodiesel and sell for yourself at a marginal profit, find someone that builds smokers and sell/give it to them to use to season the cook Chambers or since vegetable/cooking oil burns really well, use it as an accelerant in a backyard fire pit.
Those are going to be about your only options.
Hm.
Can’t get the sight to load this morning, but can confirm at least 1 much nearer than that at Brookhaven College in Farmer’s Branch.
Have used before.
I’ve no reason to think the information at the following link is either complete and authoritative, but I also didn’t see anything about that registered as “fishy” to me or smacked of some faux-environmentalism:
But, of note:
– Used cooking appears to be bio-degradable (makes sense…it’s from plants and animals). So disposing into landfill should not be the source of any “environmental anxiety” for anyone.
– Also, it seems to be a potential component for composting activities. My gut feel is in small amounts, though…I see no issue if a few ounces of used oil, say from making a pound of bacon and eating it all in one sitting, ends up in a yard waste recycling/composting stream via a lawn/leaf brown bag full of other stuff like grass clippings and etc.
– Soap making? I’d think it would need to be well filtered/clean, though. But this seems like the option highest in effort and lowest in actual practical application/usefulness. But it may make some folks “feel” better about their carbon footprint or whatever to attempt it and finally throw the whole mess in the garbage anyway.
1 Like
Wait until you have a little more.
The Plano community newsletter says this:
“Schedule a free pickup for 1 of more gallons of cooking or turkey fryer oil. Just collect it in a container and call Environmental Waste Services to recycle it into bio-diesel fuel.”
1 Like
This story would seem to indicate, at least in Florida, that restaurants sell their used oil instead of paying to dispose of it.
My family was in the restaurant business decades ago; we sold used oil to be used making soap.
Every oil recycling container I’ve seen has stern warnings about “property of” and that theft will be prosecuted. I seriously doubt restaurants are paying to dispose of it.