Used cooking oil thefts on the rise

The rising price of fuel has had a lot of strange side effects. But surely one of the strangest is the rise in thefts of used cooking oil.

Restaurants that fry up delicious food face a waste disposal problem. If you just dump used cooking oil down the drain, it has negative effects on the sewer system. Therefore, conscientious restaurants will collect all of their used cooking oil in big drums or tanks. They then contract with a service which swings by and picks up the used cooking oil periodically.

Because it's, well, trash, most restaurants do not secure their used cooking oil. It is usually kept in the back of the restaurant, next to the dumpsters. But many restaurants have started keeping their used grease under lock and key because more and more places are reporting that their used cooking oil is being stolen before it can be picked up for disposal, just as The Simpsons predicted.

The cooking oil thieves are reportedly selling the cooking oil on the biofuel black market. I was not aware that there was a black market in biofuel, but apparently the rising cost of biofuel is spurring this strange economic sideline. Used cooking grease makes an excellent biofuel, once it has been properly filtered.

My question is, if used cooking grease is valuable enough for people to steal, then why aren't restaurants cashing in on this? I suspect a lot of restaurants are getting taken for a ride by their cooking grease pick-up companies.

If you own or work at a restaurant that collects its grease, I would love to know if the service charges you money or pays you for it, and whether you have considered selling it directly to the consumer. Apparently there is a market for it, so why not cash in? Times are tough for restaurants these days, and any way they can make a bit of extra money is a good thing!

Image courtesy Flickr/Helen Ogbourn