What’s the Best Way to Dispose of Cooking Grease?

Published on Monday, September 27, 2010, by Roxanne Webber / Edit Post

Dumping used cooking grease down the drain can clog your pipes: It may be liquid when you pour it, but it will cool and harden quickly. "Even if it doesn't mess up your pipes, [everybody's plumbing] dumps into the city pipes and the grease builds up, eventually causing a blockage, which leads to sewer spills," says Donna Souza, the program manager of the Food Establishment Wastewater Discharge Program in San Diego, California. The best way to dispose of grease is to keep it out of the plumbing system entirely by reusing it or recycling it.

If you have some high-quality grease you actually want to keep, say, rendered duck fat or highfalutin-bacon grease, let it cool down a little and strain it into a jar, then store it in the refrigerator. You can use it to roast potatoes or start an unending cycle of greasy bacon-frying (see video below). If it's a large quantity of oil from deep-frying, you can cool it down, store it, and use it again. But beware of what you've fried in it: Flavors linger. Don't fry doughnuts in oil you've already used to fry seafood.

If you don't want to reuse your grease or cooking oil, just cool and collect it in an old container for recycling: Many city recycling facilities, from Columbia, South Carolina, to San Diego, California, are starting to accept it from residential homes. If your city doesn't, Souza says the grease or oil should be poured into an unrecyclable container and thrown in the garbage.

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Roxanne Webber is senior features editor at CHOW.com. Follow her on Twitter. Follow CHOW, too, and become a fan on Facebook.

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POST A COMMENT |14 Comments

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  • Please, please - not down the drain. I was the GM for a water district - grease down the drain causes problems for everyone - even higher sewer bills!! I've even saved it for suet for the birds. Just freeze until you need it.

  • Our city is now trying to educate the residents about not pouring fat down the drain. The sewer system can't handle it. How awful that you have to tell someone not to do that.

    One of our local doctors moved here from India and he and his wife were pouring all their used cooking oil down the drain. It didn't take long for them to figure out that was a no-no after the huge plumbing bill and a...+READ

    Our city is now trying to educate the residents about not pouring fat down the drain. The sewer system can't handle it. How awful that you have to tell someone not to do that.

    One of our local doctors moved here from India and he and his wife were pouring all their used cooking oil down the drain. It didn't take long for them to figure out that was a no-no after the huge plumbing bill and a lecture from the plumber.-COLLAPSE

  • boiling water and down the drain.

  • ludo, where I live, it would attract bears. Just a thought for those who have larger critters in the area.

  • Here in the north east I save my drippings (mostly bacon fat) in a container in the fridge. When there is enough, I re-melt it in the micro wave, pour it into a square mold (a plastic ice tray will do) and freeze it.
    When winter comes I unmold the frozen fat and hang it out in the suet feeder for the birds. It attracts woodpeckers, chickadees, bluejays and lots of other birds. They love it, and...+READ

    Here in the north east I save my drippings (mostly bacon fat) in a container in the fridge. When there is enough, I re-melt it in the micro wave, pour it into a square mold (a plastic ice tray will do) and freeze it.
    When winter comes I unmold the frozen fat and hang it out in the suet feeder for the birds. It attracts woodpeckers, chickadees, bluejays and lots of other birds. They love it, and it can be a life saver on a frigid winter's day!-COLLAPSE

  • Lovely, shitmuffin. You're a real winner. Thanks, ssalty-I'll be trying that next time :)

  • In Oakland, we have been advised to put kitchen grease in the green bin (the container with yard clippings and food waste) rather than pouring it down the drain where it can pose pollution risks.

  • Oil or fat that has been used to fry seafood can be recycled by tossing in a few french fries. The potato soaks up the fishy residue and you can use it for just about anything. An old trick my mom taught me.

  • I usually reserve it in a covered glass dish.

    I have also used this rendered grease and newspaper as a fire starter for my charcoal chimney. You just wipe the newspaper in the grease and ball up the paper and stick it under the chimney. This way you don't have to use lighter fluid.

  • Here in Seattle we can put meat scraps and grease in our yard waste bin, picked up weekly by the city, and composted. We keep an old margarine tub in the freezer and put cooled grease in it. When full, we dump it in the yard waste bin.

  • I save jars with their caps for this use. They go out with the rest of the garbage.
    I thought everybody did this.

  • Save it and make soap.

  • No; eventually, the water going down the pipes will dilute away the soap and it won't dissolve the grease, so it will eventually clog things down the line as the article mentioned.

  • Is it not a good idea to run hot water and pour down the drain followed by Dawn..
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