A common question: Is cooking oil a hazardous waste? Every year, the world consumes millions of metric tons of cooking oil, and do you know where it ends up? Unfortunately, most of it ends up in drains as many countries have still not imposed a ban on draining used cooking oil.
Additionally, when you wash the greased pans or trash greasy tissues, they, too, somehow end in drains and sewage pipes, creating problems. The question is what problems it creates.
Today we have compiled a guide on the problems associated with used cooking oil and minimizing or getting rid of these problems. Let’s dive deeper into the topic and check if cooking oil is a hazardous waste or not.
Table of Contents
How is Cooking Oil Made?
Factories and refineries extract cooking oil from plant seeds. Below is the complete process plant seeds undergo before they change into cooking oil.
- Pass the oilseeds from magnets to eliminate any metal pieces.
- Collect from the magnets to pass them over the roller, which ensures they are all proper consistency.
- Heat the seeds, which helps to extract oil easily.
- Now the heated seeds go through a screw press to allow the initial oil to retrieve.
- Retrieve the remaining oil by solvent extraction, which helps get the maximum oil from oilseeds.
- During this process, some oil will evaporate. Collect the vaporized oil for reuse.
- Now, boil the oil, which allows hexane to levitate and condense.
- Pass it through the refinery to eliminate its color, smell, and bitterness
Is cooking oil a fossil fuel? Read here.
Why Shouldn’t We Drain Cooking Oil?
Draining cooking oil may seem the easiest way to get rid of that contaminated and used waste. In some countries, draining cooking oil is illegal. As a general rule, one shouldn’t do it regardless of what their country’s government restrictions are. Here is why:
- Cooking oil coats plants and animals, which deprives them of oxygen, and they die.
- Draining cooking oil causes sewage problems by blocking it and reducing pipe flow capacity. Around 47% of sewage backups in the USA are a result of draining cooking oils.
- Used cooking oil smell rancid wherever it flows.
- It may mix up with other contaminants from drain pipes and end up being a toxic substance.
- It coats plants, destroying food supplies.
- It affects animal breeding.
- It clogs water treatment plant.
- Once mixed with other contaminants, it may catch up the fire when ignited to an ignition source.
- It floats on water depriving marine life of sunlight which kills them.
Is cooking oil combustible? Read our comprehensive guide.
Is Cooking Oil a Hazardous Waste?
Yes, we can consider cooking oil a hazardous waste only if it mixes with other substances. Cooking oil itself results from pressing and refining oilseeds, and if it is 100% pure, we can’t label it as hazardous waste because it will decompose quickly.
No matter what the contaminant is, cooking oil mixes with it, won’t decompose properly, flow through the sewage lines and cause harm to plants, animals, and marine life.
This means that used cooking oil somehow is still at risk. So it is better to research and learn proper disposal methods so that it doesn’t mix with anything else and stays a non-hazardous waste until reuse.
How to Properly Dispose Of Cooking Oil?
There are several methods of disposing of cooking oil. No, I am not talking about draining it but other eco-friendly practices.
Method 1: mix it with an absorbent substance such as sawdust, sand, cat litter, or flour. When completely absorbed, throw it in the trash.
Method 2: cool the cooking oil and transfer it to a plastic container and freeze it. Once frozen, throw it in the trash.
Method 3: take it to a restaurant. Biofuel manufacturing companies collect used cooking oil from restaurants to produce an eco-friendly fuel. In other cases, waste disposal companies will collect that cooking oil. Else, the restaurant knows how to dispose of it properly.
Method 4: contact a waste disposal company yourself and ask them to collect used cooking oil from your home. Some of these companies also collect medical wastes from homes.
Method 5: buy a fat or grease trapper. It will help you properly keep and dispose of used cooking oil. Also, it will keep the smell of cooking oil locked within it, saving your drains and the environment from oil’s negative impacts.
Method 6: add the used cooking oil to your compost. 100% pure vegetable oil has the same impacts as vegetables. It is organic and hence can be added to compost to provide the soil with nutrients.
Remember not to add animal fat and oil used for cooking meat as it may invite bugs near it. Also, use 100% pure vegetable oil only. Adding too much oil may block oxygen and moisture causing plants to die. Don’ts While Disposing Of Cooking Oil
Properly disposing of cooking oil is a great idea, but you need to avoid these four things first.
- Don’t use plastic bags for disposing of cooking oil as they may leak.
- Don’t throw cooking oil if it is hot. Hot cooking oil will attract bugs.
- Throw drain cooking oil in the sink, toilet, or drain. It will eventually end up in sewage pipes and block them.
- Before you wash a greased pan, clean it properly with a tissue or a paper towel.
Also, read our guide: Is Engine Oil Toxic?
Tips to Reduce the Use of Cooking Oil
Reducing is better than curing, isn’t it? Instead of wasting your energies on taking preventive measures while washing greasy pans and adequately disposing of cooking oil, you can also focus on reducing its use. Here is how you can do that:
Instead of cooking oil, you can steam-cook your foods. Steam-cooked foods retain more flavor, texture, and tenderness. The number of vitamins lost is less. Additionally, it makes food digestible.
Baking is also a good option as there won’t be any food reactions, unlike when you use cooking oil (cooking oil, when exposed to high heat, breaks down to form carcinogens). Also, baking is healthier as it has low calories, unlike deep-fried foods.
Air frying is another alternative to using cooking oils. Air frying is considered a healthy option as it cuts food calories by around 80% and has lower harmful fats. It promotes weight loss and reduces the risk of obesity.
Tips for Reusing Cooking Oil
If you want to reuse cooking oil, you should keep the cooking oil away from impurities and filter the leftover food out once you store it. You should prefer keeping it in a cool and dry place in a tightly sealed glass container.
Keep the cooking oil separate for all foods. If you have used cooking oil to cook chicken, don’t dry french fries onto it. This will help keep its flavor and last longer.
Reminder: don’t forget the expiry date of cooking oils when you shift them to glass containers.
If you are using cooking oil for frying chicken, you can reuse it four times. If you are using it for french fries, it is good to use it eight more times. If you fry battered food, you can reuse it four times.
Other Uses of Used Cooking Oil
You can also reuse cooking oil to make homemade soap. They are cheaper and won’t require much labor. Here is how you can do it:
Dissolve 200g of caustic soda in 400ml of warm water. Now, Filter impurities and leftover food from 1 liter of cooking oil and mix it to the caustic soda and warm water mixture. Finally, add 400ml of fabric softener. Freeze until stiff, and the soap is ready to use.
Besides, you can reuse it as an effective and low-cost insecticide and pesticide. Here is a DIY technique to do so:
For an insecticide, mix one cup of used filtered vegetable oil into one tablespoon of dishwashing liquid in a jar. Cover the jar and mix it vigorously until combined. It is an environmentally friendly insecticide that will suffocate garden bugs to death.
For pesticide or weed killer. Mix one quart of water and two teaspoons of used and filtered vegetable oil. Pour the mixture in a spray and spray as needed.
Used Cooking Oil – A Fuel to Save the World
With a rapidly increasing population, the demand for fossil fuels has increased rapidly too. This way, fossil fuels are depleting at a dangerous rate. The world needs to switch to more renewable resources such as solar power, wind power, hydropower, tidal power, and biofuel.
Companies collect used cooking oil from homes and restaurants and use it to produce biofuel. This saves the environment as people won’t drain it in sinks and toilets and acts as an excellent alternative to fossil fuels.
Here is how companies create biofuel from used cooking oil:
Companies collect cooking oil with broken free fatty acids. They then pass the oil through machinery to retain the free fatty acids in it.
Now, they filter the oil to remove any leftover food or impurity. Transesterification is the next step. This makes cooking oil safer to use.
Next, machines take out glycerin from the oil, and the company sells it to cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies. The biofuel is now ready to use.
To further understand this, read the complete guide on: Is cooking oil renewable?
Ending Note – Is Cooking Oil a Hazardous Waste?
Is cooking oil a hazardous waste? No, it is not. One can only consider cooking oil as hazardous waste when it mixes with any other contaminant.
When 100% pure, cooking oil is decomposable, but if drained, it may cover plants and animals, depleting their oxygen and causing marine life to die.
Additionally, it may block water treatment plants, sewage pipes, destroy food supplies, and mix with other contaminants to become toxic substances.
There are proper guidelines to dispose of cooking oil. You need to take the necessary precautions and avoid draining it into the sink.
Even if you wash a greasy pan, you should clean it with a paper towel first. These necessary precautions will help save our environment and this planet.
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