Cooking Oil Disposal for Commercial Kitchens: 7 Steps in the Order to Do Them

The mistake named most often is tipping spent fryer oil down the kitchen drain and trusting the grease trap to catch it. The trap is not built for that job. Fryer oil belongs in a sealed container for a collector. The trap only handles the greasy wash water that follows.

This checklist covers cooking oil disposal in a commercial kitchen. It deals with the oil in your fryers and pans, not the sludge in your trap. Work through it in order.

1. Split your kitchen into two waste streams

A commercial kitchen produces two kinds of greasy waste, and each leaves by its own route. Used cooking oil comes out of your fryers and pans. Grease trap waste is the mix of fat, water and food solids that builds up inside the trap.

Oil goes to a used cooking oil collector. Trap waste goes to a licensed liquid waste cleaner. Booking one does not cover the other. Our post on grease trap waste after disposal explains what happens to the second stream, so this article sticks to the oil.

• Fryer oil, pan oil and rendered fat: collector
• Trap contents: licensed cleaner
• Wash water: down the drain, through the trap

2. Let the oil cool, then move it once

Hot oil burns people and softens plastic. Switch the fryer off and let the oil cool before you touch it. Then move it once, from the fryer into a sealed, labelled storage container. A funnel and a strainer help, because they catch the crumbs.

Never carry open pots of oil across a wet kitchen floor. Most oil injuries in kitchens come from moving hot oil in a hurry at the end of a shift. Make the transfer a set job for a set person.

3. Keep water, detergent and food scraps out of the container

Collectors want clean used oil because they recycle it into other products, including biodiesel. Water, cleaning chemicals and food waste make the load harder to process. Some collectors will refuse a contaminated drum or charge more to take it.

Set one rule and stick it on the wall: only oil goes in the drum. Scrape plates into the food bin. Wipe the oil out of pans before you rinse them, not after.

• Wipe greasy pans with paper towel first, and bin the towel
• Keep the drum lid on between transfers
• Store the drum away from the drain line and the back door

4. Find your trade waste agreement and read what it says about oil

Most operators only think about grease when the kitchen smells, the drain backs up or an inspection is due. That is often when they realise they have never read their trade waste agreement. Your agreement with the water authority sets the pump-out frequency for your trap, and many operators do not know theirs.

Read it for anything about oil and fat leaving the site. Keep a copy where the manager can reach it. The rules differ by state and by water authority. For the general picture, see our guide to grease trap regulations in Australia. Then check the rules with your own water authority, such as Sydney Water if you trade in Sydney.

5. Book a collector that suits the volume you produce

A search for "cooking oil disposal near me" mostly turns up two kinds of provider. Some supply a bin and collect on a regular run. Others take one-off drop-offs. Council and waste centre drop-offs are designed for households, and many will not take commercial quantities. Check before you drive there with a full drum.

A collector that services commercial kitchens usually supplies the container and collects on a schedule. For a starting point, look at the used cooking oil services pages from Cleanaway, and at your local council or regional waste authority. Ask each provider:

• Do you supply the drum or bin, and is there a rental fee?
• How often do you collect, and can you adjust the run?
• What do you do with the oil after collection?
• What paperwork do you leave behind?

6. Keep a record of every collection

Every collection leaves a paper trail showing where your oil went. Keep the dockets or invoices in one folder, filed by date. If an inspector asks how you handle used oil, that folder answers the question in seconds.

Most kitchens never do this, and it costs nothing. It also settles who is responsible when a drum goes missing or a pickup gets skipped.

7. Test the plan against your real kitchen

Take a worked example. A cafe has one fryer and changes the oil when it darkens. The owner pours the cooled oil into an old drum in the back lane and pays a mate to take it away. Nobody has a docket for it.

The decision rule is short. If you fry in volume, sign up with a collector and stop using informal removals. If you only pan-fry small amounts, wipe pans with paper towel and bin it. If your trade waste agreement says anything about oil, it overrides both rules. For this cafe, the answer is a collector with a supplied drum and a docket every visit.

Once the oil is sorted, turn to the trap. The two jobs are separate, but they connect. A trap that takes fryer oil fills faster, and a full trap smells and backs up. Thinking of handling the trap yourself? Read our post on whether you can clean a grease trap yourself first.

Get the trap sorted next

Cooking oil disposal is one half of keeping your kitchen compliant. The other half is a licensed cleaner servicing the trap on the schedule your agreement sets. Grease Trap Quotes covers Sydney today and is expanding to other Australian cities. You send one request from your commercial kitchen, and we send you three quotes from licensed cleaners by SMS, usually within about a minute.

Cleaners price on trap size, service frequency, access to the trap and disposal fees. Two kitchens with the same trap can see quite different quotes. Get 3 grease trap quotes and compare them side by side. To learn who we are, read about GreaseTrapQuotes.

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*Written by Mario Lucas. Mario runs Grease Trap Quotes, which matches commercial kitchens in Sydney with licensed grease trap cleaners.*

Related reading: New Grease Trap Installation: The 9-Item Checklist Before You Call a Plumber.

Related reading: Grease Trap Servicing Quotes: How to Compare Three Cleaners Line by Line.