How To Recycle Used Oils Based On The Type Of Oil
Posted on: 4 July 2018
Most used oils are recyclable. However, each type of used oil can only be recycled in a specific way. If you have any kind of used oil laying around your home, garage, restaurant, etc., here is how to recycle each one in the way that is considered safe and acceptable by the EPA.
Bacon Grease
Bacon grease is recycled in the South for other cooking purposes. Typically, when the fat of bacon is made liquid, a home cook will catch the liquid grease in a metal container and keep the container covered. Then the bacon grease solidifies into a sort of lard. A Southern home cook uses this recycled bacon lard to make hoecakes (pancakes) and/or fry up a batch of hush puppies, donut holes, fried cornbread, or fry bread. It keeps the grease from collecting into a thick, pipe-clogging mess in your kitchen drains and plumbing, and creates some tasty foods!
Cooking Oil (in Restaurants)
Cooking oil in restaurants is collected in grease traps. Then the grease traps are emptied by special recycling companies who convert the collected and used cooking oil into methane. The methane then powers power plants, which supply electrical power to the communities in which these oil recycling plants reside. Some ingenious people also use used cooking oil to fuel special cars, but they often have to purify and clarify the used cooking oil first.
Used Car Oil
In most cities and states, used car oil is supposed to be taken to the city dump in approved containers. You have to pay a fee for the dump to take the oil, but then the dump pours the used oil into drums. The drums are then taken to an oil refinery, where the oil is "cleaned" of all impurities and engine dirt particles. It has to go through this process a couple of times before it returns to its yellowish, "clean" color and can be bottled and sold as "new" oil.
You can also collect the used oil from DIY oil changes and place the used oil in a pre-approved drum. When the drum is full, you can take the drum directly to the nearest refinery yourself. You have to sign a form to surrender the barrel, but you typically do not have to pay anything for this. There may be a small charge to acquire a clean barrel if you want to repeat this process.
For more information, contact a company like Denver Used Oil.
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