How to dispose of cooking oil? Simple & Quick
Cooking oil is a very versatile product that can be used to fry food items, or be mixed with other ingredients in order to make them more palatable.
However, when you are done cooking it’s important to know how to dispose of the leftover cooking oil so that it does not contaminate your kitchen and become an environmental hazard.
There are many ways in which you can safely dispose of your excess cooking oil from deep frying without hurting yourself or the environment.
This blog post will provide ten simple steps on how you should go about disposing of any cooking oils that have been left over after using them for deep frying purposes!
Table of Contents
How to dispose of cooking oil?
You deep-fried you some chips, have a lot of oil after your KFC chicken experiment, or you are just left with a lot of grease, now what?
You can not pour the cooking oil into the sink because it will clog the drain and may get into your sewage system.The same goes for pouring it in the toilet, it will clog it and can be even more dangerous to the environment.
Excess cooking oil can’t be poured into the bathroom sink either because it will also clog your drain. Finally, you can not just pour it into your backyard garden as you would damage your own garden and pollute the environment.
Here are simple steps on how to dispose of cooking oil:
Let cooking oil cool down
After you are done frying or deep frying let the grease cool down until it is completely solidified, or at least has a pudding-like texture.
Move it to a container
Then, pour the cooking oil into a container. You can re-use oil for some purposes and recycling your frying oil is one of the ways how you can get rid of it.
Seal it
In case you did not use any of it. Put it in a plastic bag and seal it tightly so that no additional air can enter. You should also put the sealed bags in your freezer to keep them from getting rancid.
Dispose of cooking oil
When this is done just through it away with your garbage.
Take Oil to a Waste Management Center
If you are dealing with big volumes of cooking oil that you need to dispose of, you may need a garbage collection center which usually takes waste oil.
The benefits of taking it to a specialized waste collector are that they have the equipment to properly dispose of it and that you will not be contaminating your own garbage.
Re-use your cooking oil
If your cooking oil did not go past the smoke point when you were cooking – it is good to be used again.
Recycling your cooking oil is one of the great ways how to not waste it. So you are saving money and the environment.
You can use it again in the usual dishes that you did before – deep frying or just frying something in a pan.
Take Excess Oil to a Restaurant
If you have excess oil, then one of the good ways how to dispose of it is to take it and use it in a local restaurant. Take cooking oil back for re-use at restaurants, this way how you can get rid of your old cooking oils – taking them back where they were can be used again.
Why can’t I pour oil down the drain?
You may be thinking why can’t I just pour it down the drain?
The oil will go through water treatment plants and they’re not designed to filter out cooking oils. The grease, when mixed with the other greases in your food waste, produces a sludge that damages the equipment at our wastewater facilities.
As a result of constantly disposing of cooking oil by just pouring it into your sink, you will soon completely clog it. Resulting in a costly sink and drain replacement.
Why can’t I pour oil outside in your backyard?
As a result of constantly disposing of cooking oil by just pouring it outside in your backyard, you will soon have a big pool of oil.
But not only that, the oil that you dispose of that way will eventually make its way into your soil and to the water sources.
What if I have just a little cooking oil to dispose of?
If you just have a bit of oil after you made some eggs, that is not that big of an issue. But if you are daily producing oil that you need to dispose of – consider having a container that you would slowly be filling up.
But even if the amount of remaining cooking oil is small, you do not want to clog your sink. You can dispose of this by pouring it into coffee filters that have been lined and layered with paper towels or newspaper, then put in a tight-sealing plastic bag to absorb the oil.
Or just dip the frying pan with napkins so they soak up the oil and dispose of them in your garbage.
Always remember to let your cooking oil cool down before you work with it.
Decrease your oil waste production
Another simple way to dispose of cooking oil is just to have less of it. For example, when you are frying bacon, it will produce fat that can serve as a lubricant for the pan.
You can easily fry your omellete on bacon fat instead of adding cooking oil and then trying to solve how to dispose of cooking oil.
Sure, the goal of this post is not to teach you to eat more healthily, but how to dispose of cooking oil. Still, if you do want to cut down on how much fat and oils that your family consumes then try out using natural oil that is included in the food.
What to do with oil after frying?
This will depend on the amount of disposable oil that you produced during your cooking. If you are cooking a small amount of food, you could dispose of cooking oil by wiping it with a paper napkin and throwing it in the garbage.
For larger quantities of oil leftover from frying or deep-frying, go through the steps that are described at the beginning of this article.
Summary
Cooking oil is a very versatile product that can be used to fry food items, or be mixed with other ingredients in order to make them more palatable.
However, when you are done cooking it’s important to know how to dispose of the leftover cooking oil so that it does not contaminate your kitchen and become an environmental hazard.
There are many ways in which you can safely dispose of your excess cooking oil from deep frying without hurting yourself or the environment. So make sure that you dispose of cooking oil properly.