We had a grease can under the sink when I wasgrowing up. My fiancee and I use an old jar. I can’t believe people didn’t know better. They probably think it’s fine to dump car fluids in the storm drain too. Idiots.
I have a small bucket filled with sawdust that I use to store used cooking oil. Bucket stays in the garage as it’ll eventually go rancid. When it does, it gets thrown into the trash. The resulting mess is still greasy, but not runny. The key here is that soaking it this way limits the mess that can happen if it’s knocked over; sawdust is what you use to clean an oil spill anyway.
Wood-based cat litter would also work for this. It’s just compressed sawdust pellets^1^.
Edit: I have not looked into donating it as biodiesel. That would probably be a somewhat more green option.
^1^ - very likely made in the same fashion as pellet stove fuel, so that might work too.
My parents could keep that going for a good long time by filtering it through a few layers of kitchen paper, it got rid of a lot of the burnt stuff, came out quite clear each time.
That depends on the dish - a Wiener Schnitzel for example should be able to move freely in the oil (because it should be kept moving while frying), or the breading will be pretty underwhelming. Same goes for most stuff with breading. I always try to be very conservative in my cooking oil usage, but in those cases it’s just not an option.
I keep a container for used cooking oil along with old motor oil. Whenever it starts getting full, I take it to the local auto parts store for recycling.
Do not take cooking oil to an Advanced Auto Parts for recycling. They do not accept that. If you’d like other options, a quick internet search will let you know what you can doodoo brown 🕺
Mixed? Motor oil should be recycled at the auto parts store, but different people people used vegetable oil. Worse case, you could throw out the veg oil. It will biodegrade in the landfill better then most of the stuff that ends up there
Idc if this is dumb, I pour it in a bucket and when it’s full I dig a hole in the back yard and pour the oil in there and bury it. I do this 1-2 times a year.
Honestly not the worst idea now I think about it. I have been using the paper towel soak method, but this could actually be less wasteful and easier on the organic composter. Thanks for the tip!
Edit: Ok so I dug into this a bit more (no pun intended), and seems its not the best idea due to the oil potentially seeping into groundwater.
I did that once, I was staying at a family as an exchange student and immediately forced to help with chores. Now, they ran a large creche from that house so there were a lot of different chores and being on dishes could mean slaving away in the kitchen for well over an hour.
Anyway, I didn’t know shit about how to properly dispose of oil and in the first or second week poured a large pan of oil down the drain. It ended up ruining some stuff and they had a hefty repair bill. I may be cynical, but I never gave a damn about it as they were basically using me as free labor anyway. Helping with household chores = ok. Helping clean up the gigantic daily mess of those shitty kids in your shitty creche = not ok
I’ll usually wipe the oil with some paper so I can throw it on the trash. Many moons ago, my family used to collect the oil to make soap at home. Last time I recall seeing that was some 30-ish years ago.