Of Bacon Grease and Sewage Spills

A reader asks the Green Guide:

What is the best way to dispose of bacon grease or grease from other meats? I currently soak this up with paper towels, which requires a lot of towels, making it not a very green disposal. Is there a better way?

Kathy W.
Lexington, Ky.

The Green Guide responds:

That's a great question. Disposal of cooking grease and other fatty oils can be tricky, because it's imperative to avoid putting them down the drain. And it's particularly relevant in the wake of last week's decision by the city government of Raleigh, N.C., to ban installation of garbage disposals in new homes because of a grease-blocked sewage system.

Grease, cooking oils, marinades or any other fatty oils that are poured down the drain cling to pipes and build up the way fatty foods clog our arteries, eventually causing blocked pipes and a serious problem. In the case of tiny residential pipes (usually about two to four inches in diameter), this can mean costly plumbing repairs, or worse, sewage backup and spills. Raleigh has had more than 100 sewage overflows since 2005, and officials say it's due in large part to household grease being rinsed down the drain or flushed down the toilet, leaving white, fatty clumps in the sewage system.

Not only are they unpleasant and unsanitary, but sewage spills mean health hazards and detrimental consequences for the environment, as blockages have to be flushed out with chemicals that are usually petroleum-based and can be highly caustic (sulfuric acid, for instance, may be used to clean up excessively clogged pipes). The waste from clean-up then runs off into waterways.

The best way to handle used cooking grease is to pour it from the pan into a container that you can freeze, preferably one you'd have to throw away because it's not accepted by your local recycling program. Frozen juice cartons work well because they won't melt when they come in contact with hot grease.

Use a rubber spatula to scrape as much of the grease out of the pan as possible, and then it should only take one paper towel to wipe the pan clean. Unfortunately, it is best to use a disposable towel in this case; washing off a grease-saturated cloth towel would mean rinsing more grease down the drain.

Store the container in the freezer, which will keep the grease solid, and pull it out whenever you have fats, oils and grease to dispose of. When it gets full, dump the whole container in the trash.

Read more about Raleigh's garbage-disposal ban at www.npr.org.