Posted on 07/25/2008 8:45:35 AM PDT by Kevin J waldroup
Mark Rosenzweig, owner of San Jose Tallow, was driving home through suburban San Jose, Calif., one mid-April day when he noticed a pumper truck pulling into a shopping center. He was immediately suspicious. Rosenzweig knew the only eatery in that center was a Burger King because he held the contract for grease removal. “I followed him until he pulled into the Burger King where I watched him steal the grease,” he says.
Rosenzweig is no stranger to grease theft. “It’s a common problem out here,” he says. He told Biodiesel Magazine that in one week during the month of June his workers came across four empty grease bins at various locations. “Somebody’s still out there stealing,” he says and adds that the problem has only gotten worse as the wholesale price for grease has gone up. “Ten years ago we couldn’t give this stuff away and we were charging to pick it up and now all of sudden people are stealing it. It’s gone full circle.”
Rosenzweig suspects the thieves are a combination of home brewers and commercial operators. “I don’t think the home brewers are hitting it as much as some of the new start-up bio-companies,” he says. It’s hard to tell who is responsible for the thefts because once it’s gone, grease is hard to track. Rosenzweig reports all of his company’s theft experiences, but that’s pretty much where the investigation ends.
(Excerpt) Read more at biodieselmagazine.com ...
Who would have thought used grease theft would ever be an issue?
Grease is the word.
????
I hope he means home brewers of bio diesel. I've never seen a beer recipe that calls for 100 gallons of used grease.
I had the exact same reaction a couple of weeks ago when I read a similar story in my local paper.
They aren’t thieves, they are good Marxists who believe in taking from those who have more and giving it to those who have less.
These grease thieves are quite slippery....
Hmm...grease price climbing...overweight Americans...liposuction...guv funding for alternative energy sources...
Perhaps he could have called the police and then blocked thier exit? Instead he sounds like he doesn’t know who’s doing this. Sheesh
oops, should have read the article. Looks like he did exactly that
I was thinking the same thing...
Grease in your homebrew wouldn’t be too cool... and it would leave a funny feeling on the roof of your mouth.
Definitely NOT the sort of “finish” I’m seeking in a stout!
My brother gets his bio fuel veg oil from a hamburger joint. People give it to him just for picking it up. He runs it in his one ton and does great with it. I think the people getting paid to haul it away are becoming upset knowing they could lose out on some business.
Brothers truck does smell like french fries and sometimnes eggrolls.
Speaking of stealing things, I have a friend who had a trailer that he tried to GIVE away by placing a sign that said FREE on it. It sat there for three weeks and nobody touched it. He took the sign off and put one on that said “FOR SALE $300”. It was “stolen” that night.
Grease for Peace!
They are no longer getting paid to take it away, they have to pay for it, then they either resell it, or process it. It's called the free market. The people who are taking it *without permission* are stealing. You know a crime, could be a felony if the grease is valuable enough.
The California Assembly could come up with some kind of grease microstamping legislation. It works so well for guns, why not grease?
Definitely.
"Soylent grease is people!"
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