Cooking Oil Recycling Program: Raleigh's new holiday offering, how it works, will it work?

Triangle Biofuels in Wilson has an idea surrounding biofuels from cooking oil.  They will pay the city of Raleigh 25 cents per gallon of used cooking oil, just in time for Thanksgiving. 

How to recycle cooking oil:

Call the city of Raleigh at (919) 996-6890 to make sure they know you are recycling cooking oil.  Then you place your used cooking oil into a plastic container, sit it next to your other recycled items, label it "cooking oil" and it is picked up.

Motor oil and other petroleum products will not be accepted.  Wake County’s drop-off facilities at 9037 Deponie Drive in Raleigh or 6130 Old Smithfield Road in Apex is the best place to take those items.

I have suffered this problem on various times and know what cooking oil can do when pouring it down a drain.  $150 later my sink was back in order. 

Cooking oil cools when going down pipes if drained.  The one thing that many forget is when you run hot water, the water cools as it travels down pipes.  Put liquified cooking oil down a pipe and you are creating a wall or a "plug" to block passage after it cools.  The cooking oil makes it down your pipes potentially causing clogs as anything passing clings and sticks to the concentrated cooled cooking oil. 

Sink desposals are not encouraged since that too causes food and oils to glide through as the food is chopped up to pass.  There are many ways to clog a system.  However, cooking oil is one of the most damaging and expensive clogs around.  It effects water and sewer lines.

According to Wral, Marti Gibson had some insight on this measure.  "It acts like a super-glue almost, so that anything else you send down the drain kind of sticks," said Marti Gibson, the city's environmental management system coordinator. 

Raleigh's curbside cooking-oil recycling program is designed to keep the oil and grease out of sewer lines due to many troubling factors including pipe overflow.  Raleigh residents should keep oil out of their own lines.  But not everyone knew where to dispose of their old cooking oil, now they do.

Wilson has up to Jan. 15, 2010 to show success within this program and if the city officials like the numbers, they might create a year-round cooking-oil recycling program.  Nice for restaurant owners, good for families, and perfect for the environment.

As the holidays begin to roll around beginning with Thanksgiving, the city of Raleigh couldn't have began this program at a better time.  Heavy cooking can result in heavy oil and grease.  Before you drain your oil or grease down a drain, call the number located above and recycle instead.  Many locals believe that this program will be a true success.  However, that remains to be seen on Jan. 15, 2010.