What do you do with oil?

28 comments

1. Put the cooking oil in a tin can with a paper towel in it

   Let it sit before tossing it

2. It depends on the amount. Small amounts can be absorbed with paper towels and left in the food waste bin which is collected with trash and recyclables. Larger amounts can be stored in a container and left out with the recyclables.

3. Pour it into a ziplock bag with some paper towels and throw it out.

4. Into the food waste bin. Often in an empty milk carton first to help contain it especially if my kitchen bin is empty or close to.

   I very rarely generate significant quantities of waste oil though.

5. Commercial kitchens usually recycle their oil. There are companies that will collect it for free and then they convert it for other uses.

   Private kitchens usually aren’t using that much frying oil. Even people who have a fryer don’t use them often. You can reuse the oil in many applications quite a few times and then you can recycle it or throw it out.

   Edit: how often are you producing significant quantities of used oil?

6. Businesses usually recycle it and have it picked up by a service. Homes usually dump them into paper towels or a milk carton or some other thing you just chuck in the trash.

7. Let it cool then throw it in the garbage

8. Home: into a non meltable container and into the trash. I’m glad to see so many others put it in the trash and NOT DOWN THE DRAIN

   At work, we have buckets and at the end of the day, I take it all to a special grease dumpster that will be picked up 1-2x a year to be made into biodiesel . Yes it smells god awful

9. Very few consumer vehicles here are diesel.

   My used cooking oil goes in the waste bin.

10. In Seattle, you put it in a jug and label it “cooking oil” and put it out next to your trash and recycling bins. It gets picked up and turned into biofuel.

11. The amount of oil I use is so little that it’s either consumed, there’s only a bit left, or it’s used as a starter lubricant for cooking other things that will put out grease so the result will be will be an oil/grease mix that will be non-liquid at room temperature. Then there’s bacon grease. For all of these, I pour the waste into a large glass jar, which I firmly cap and throw out with the trash when it’s full.

    There’s also this, which some folks use when there’s a lot of liquid oil left: https://fryaway.co/

    > FryAway is a 100% plant-based product that transforms used cooking oil from liquid to solid in 3 easy steps. Just sprinkle, cool and toss away the hardened oil with household organic waste or garbage, making cleanup easier, better for your plumbing and nicer to the planet!

12. I don’t fry things

13. At home I’m never using enough to really collect for anything, there’s not enough left in the pan to even pour it, just has to be wiped out. I believe there’s some instructions for recycling it at the town recycling center if you have enough to justify it but I’ve never had any to put in.

    Various animal fats (beef tallow, pork lard, bacon grease, duck or goose fat, etc) I filter out & save for other cooking uses.

    Commercial kitchens/restaurants do recycle their used cooking oil at a larger scale though.

14. I have a small “deep fryer” I will reuse that oil a few times unless it was used with raw meat I filter it and store. After that it gets recycled like our car oil.
    For fat from ground beef we keep a can and pour it in. Dispose of monthly (regular trash) Bacon fat is 50% saved in fridge for further use or poured into can for disposal.

15. More often it’s separated fats/grease from things like bacon, and we pour that into a Folgers or other large coffee can, kept under the sink for the next time. Tossed out when full.

16. You should reuse your deep fry oil several times before disposing of it. Store it in a jug in the frig to keep it fresh.

    I live on a farm, so I feed waste cooking oil to the pigs and cattle. It is a high calorie feed supplement without nutrition, so it can only be fed off in small amounts over a few days, but it does help put weight on the animals faster. If the oil has been used to cook meats, we only give it to the omnivore pigs, not the herbivore cattle.

17. We have an oil burner furnace at work

18. i always just pour it down the drain

    not my problem.

19. I’m honestly not producing enough oil waste to need a way to dispose of it. I put a thin coating in the pan when I’m frying something and then it just becomes a part of the seasoning on the pan. It’s not like I’m producing massive amounts of it.

20. I don’t cook with enough oil to worry about it. I use a paper towel or whatever

21. I have my oil changed in a shop so it becomes their problem. When I change oil in a motorcycle, lawn mower or whatever else, I put it in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid like an old paint can. When it fills up, the convenience center has a place to drop it off for free. You can empty into their barrel or leave the bucket. I usually leave it.

22. Put the oil in a can and freeze it and then throw it out once the can is full.

23. Used as fire starter and getting a clean burn for everything in the burn barrel. I used to filter it and burn it in my diesel cars but it was too much work/mess

24. I put it in an empty can, freeze it, then throw it out

25. Put it in a glass jar, usually a pickle jar or pasta sauce jar, and when the jar is full put it in the garbage can.

26. I either reuse it (deep frying gets more efficient as the oil is used more, but eventually you do have to toss it) or put it in a sturdy container, which is sealed and thrown away once full.

27. I put it in the garbage after sopping most of it up with paper towels from the pan. But, it’s a well known joke in my area to pour it on your neighbor’s bushes. Not sure if anyone actually does it though!

28. Goes in a jug and I take it to the city clean up day