Local company emphasizes proper disposal of used cooking oil during holiday season
Cutline: Ace Grease Emphasizes Proper Disposal of Used Cooking Oil During the Holiday Season.
(submitted photo)
Ace Grease Hosts Drop-Off Location for Used Cooking Oil After Thanksgiving
ST. LOUIS — Families around the region are preparing to cook their delicious Thanksgiving meals over the next week. Along with those mountains of meat and sides also comes tons of cooking grease, which can damage homes and the environment if disposed of improperly. Ace Grease Director of Security and Asset Protection Wes Williamson has information and tips on how to properly get rid of used cooking oil this holiday season.
Frying turkey has become a popular way to prepare Thanksgiving’s most famous poultry, and with it comes large amounts of leftover grease. From hams to chicken to bacon-wrapped green beans, cooking oil piles up during the holidays.
“A lot of times people actually just dump the grease down their drain,” Williamson said. “That causes backups and clogs in your own house, and then it can also go downstream in the sewer system and cause a huge backup in the system overall, which could affect hundreds of people. Also, just throwing the grease in the trash and landfill can cause problems, too. Grease easily leaks into landfills or gets compressed in garbage trucks and starts to leak out of its container. This grease can seep back into the environment along the highway or neighborhood, creating toxic, unpleasant environments. It’s a pollutant when it’s not processed properly.”
Williamson said even though used cooking oil is a vegetable product, it can still harm grass and the landscape around where it’s dumped. That’s why Williamson doesn’t recommend dumping grease in the yard or out in the woods.
“Even though it is biodegradable to an extent, in large amounts, it will harm the area where you pour it,” Williamson said. “The used grease will always attract pests, like large amounts of bugs and unwanted animals, into your living area. Any time you can reuse and recycle something and keep it out of the waste stream, it benefits everyone and the environment.”
Ace Grease will accept the public’s used cooking oil any time after Thanksgiving. Simply deliver your used cooking oil to Ace Grease’s main gate at 9035 Route 163, Millstadt, Illinois, anytime during business hours from 7 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Used cooking oil brought to Ace Grease will be cleaned and processed. From there, the Thanksgiving oil can be used in a variety of unexpected ways, including as aviation fuel, bio-diesel, in hair and make-up products, and for livestock feed.
