AutoblogGreen

Pouring used cooking oil down the drain can lead to cockroach infestations - don't do it! If there's a biodiesel producer in your neighborhood, that is indeed a far better disposal option.

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I pour it into empty soup cans, freeze it, then chuck it in the garbage for pickup by the town service. I would appreciate having a way safely and hygienically to supply recyclers, e.g., NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) biodiesel makers.

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I certainly appreciate those who turn cooking oil into fuel (and besides, pouring it down the drain can also clog it), but there are two important points to realize about this.
1) Cooking oil would only supply a tiny amount of our nation's fuel demand (still, anything helps)
2) Used cooking oil is already used for other purposes (in the US at least) - see:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5626701

So to to do this on a large scale, you'd have to compete with those businesses, which would drive up costs, etc. In any case, it's not a "free" source of biodiesel (at least not on a large scale in the US). But then again, there is no silver bullet to our energy issues, so we need LOTS of small solutions, such as this one.

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That's all fine stuff, and even a good solution to the problem of what to do with cooking oil after it's been used, but there just isn't enough used cooking oil in the whole world to run more than a tiny fraction of the US ground transportation.

Economically viable biodiesel production is going to have to use oil that isn't edible as it's main feedstock (e.g., algae). Then the disposal and conversion of used cooking oil could be accommodated as a side-line.

I'd still rather see SVO engines. Biodiesel production has already driven the price of glycerin into the toilet. Disposal of excess glycerin is probably going to be a bigger problem than dumping of used deep-fry, unless some high-value use can be found for the stuff.

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Given the amount of cooking oil that is dumped in the sewer wouldn't it be cost effective to separate it at the treatment plant and convert it to bio-diesel? Collection is the greatist hurdle to recyling oil, the sewer delivers it.

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adsa in uk did this years ago, it was advertised on the side of there trucks, from all the thousends of litres produced a day from its instore hot food sections.

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These are great initiatives. Like you said there is no silver bullet but any good idea should be implemented, whatever the size. There is a website dedicated to the development of such small scale and local initiatives called www.oliomap.com . It's aim is to give a certain visibility to these projects aka businesses and show people there are ways to jump to affordable initiatives and start changing habits. Then will come the time to switch to more efficient alternatives. One step at a time...

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It would be great to see greater coordination of households used oil disposal and biodiesel vehicle owners. Everybody wins, and several middlemen are eliminated from having to mess with used oil. Hopefully anybody who deep fries turkey knows the oil can be reused a few times before replacing. 325 degrees and 3 1/2 minutes per pound if I recall.

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