So you’re done with frying oil or some other messy liquid or the like. How do you dispose of it? Do you use an old milk carton or a baggy? Do you just dump it into a bag of garbage? Do you give it to the dog and pray it doesn’t get sick? I assume you don’t use a recyclable vessel like a jar or a can. Correct me if my assumption is wrong. I use an old milk carton, filled with a funnel and top screwed on.
In my houses, used oil goes back in an empty oil bottle or jug. I haul my own garbage and recycling to a county transfer station which has a tank to receive oils.
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I don’t do any deep frying, so I only have small amounts of oil, which I soak up with paper towels and dispose of in the garbage.
For some reason I can’t stand deep-fried food anymore.
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Almost any type of grease goes into a tall cat food can and in to the freezer. When full and fully frozen, I cover it with foil and toss it. Yes, it’s a recyclable can. But trying to deal with a baggie of any size with something that’s fluid, even temporarily, just doesn’t work for me. I suppose I could use a small half-and-half carton - but again, that’s recyclable for me. The can just works for me (and it’s the way my Mom always got rid of unwanted fats).
P.S. I haven’t see a milk carton in years. My stores sells it in recyclable plastic jugs.
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I rarely fry with much oil, primarily because of this quandary, but if I find myself with used vegetable oil, I strain it if it’s not burnt, and add it to a plastic bottle that I very occasionally use oil from, and very occasionally send to the landfill. I believe that is what our local waste company instructs us to do. Burned or yucky oil goes unstrained into a smaller container and sooner to the landfill. If it’s bacon fat, I strain it and it gets added to a jar in the fridge.
Other liquids go into plastic bottles with caps, or paper cartons if the are solid at room temp, and into our yard waste bin if permitted.
I use used cooking oil as a weed killer.
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My local waste company told us to freeze our waste oil/fats (in any container) and put it in the trash.
I have see products that solidify the oil, then you can put it in the trash.
Fryaway
I’ve never used it, but know it exists.
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I use vinegar. I shall look into this.
I rarely toss used oil. If I’ve been deep frying, I clean it with gelatin, then store it in a jar next to the stove for future use in stir-fries or anything where a slightly carried over flavor won’t be a problem. I toss the puck of gelatin into our compost.
Spawn2 and Son-in-Law take their used oil to a place down the street from them in Berkeley that turns it into fuel (biodiesel). ISTR they’ll even take animal fats.
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Seen that, but never used it.
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I always save for the best firestarter. One paper towel with old oil on it and newsprint will get my coal chimney or rocket stove blazing quickly.
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I was skeptical at first, but it works pretty well. It’s more effective at capturing all the random bits and floaters in the oil than straining, and the gelatin blob seems to break down in the compost pretty well. Surprisingly, we have not had problems with raccoons, cats, skunks, or possums getting into it, either.
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I’d like to know how to do that
In Santa Cruz . I would dump olive oil that i have cooked with on the botom of the old telephone pole in front of the house . It was buried in dirt . When pge replaced it i asked the lineman what kind of shape the pole was in . He said great . Now it goes in the garbage. Not alot leftover. Not down the drain ever . Im on a septic system.
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If you’re talking about cleaning oil with gelatin, Kenji tells all:
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I have a mound septic system. Funny how those with their own septic stay very careful, whereas in the city, one bad apple can screw up a whole neighborhood. One of my best friends says three blocks worth of pssed off people are ready to bury the one family that dumps everything down the drain. What’s common sense to most is a mystery to a few ignorant others.
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I rarely deep fry, but my county has collection cabinets all around that are basically glorified metal cabinets.
When the oil is cool, i funnel it backnin the bottle and place it in the cabinet on my next trip out. They collect it and recycle it from there.
We had a septic system (and a well) growing up; never a problem. Now that I live in a high-rise, one idjit on your plumbing stack can screw up the works for a whole lotta people. I never put anything (except water) down my sink drain; I only run the disposal to keep it running. Oil or fat - big no-nos. No grinding up of leftover dinner bits. I don’t fry stuff at home anymore, so no vast quantities of oil. Fats go the paper towel route.
Any unusable oil goes in a can and into the freezer, then wrapped in plastic and into the garbage.
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EDIT - - Oh, I see now that you’ve already posted the SE primer on it. Thanks!
Hi Steve, if you get the chance can you briefly outline the gelatin oil cleaning process? Is it sort of like using an egg white raft to clarify a broth or stock?
@Tim - I funnel fats into a half-n-half container and keep in the freezer until full. We’re on septic like mentioned above and even smaller amounts of oill get scraped or swabbed out of the skillet. Not a whole lot of what we can put in the recycle bin actually gets recycled here, but I’ve read that those foil/poly/paperboard cartons are among the least amenable to recycling.
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