They say my car is the one that runs the best on biodiesel from this used grease, but I have nowhere (garage or shed) to process it, so I don't bother.
Posted on 05/06/2014 4:01:56 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Ft. Worth, TX - In darkened alleyways, a slimy cat-and-mouse game is playing out across America.
Men in trucks are fighting over a dirty and sometimes foul-smelling substance that restaurants once paid to get hauled off. Now it can be worth thousands per truckload. Liquid gold, some in the trade call it.
It's grease - used kitchen cooking oil from deep fryers at KFC and the seasoned saucepans of the fanciest French restaurant.
The increasingly consolidated industry, ranging from mom and pop operations to publicly traded giants, is marked by cutthroat competition to claim restaurant accounts. And all of them have to grab their grease before a ragtag swarm of thieves gets there first.
"This one is pretty clean," Clay Carrillo-Miranda of Haltom City's Best Grease Service said on his second-to-last stop of the day when he pumped out thick gunk from a container behind the J&J Oyster Bar in Fort Worth. "Some stink so bad you want to throw up. When it's 105 degrees, this job isn't a lot of fun, so that's when I go out at night."
And after sundown is when the thieves usually strike - and fast.
"You can pull in and drive off in five minutes. It can be $500 a night, $2,500 a week," said Carrillo-Miranda, 37, a beefy man in a black T-shirt and jean shorts. "Even if your truck gets impounded, that's $500. You're still ahead $2,000 for the week."
A 15-year veteran of the oil-recycling business, he spends several nights a month on stakeouts behind restaurants that contract with his employer. He has lost count of the locks he's replaced because of thieves with bolt cutters. His boss, Brian Smith, says a Burleson, Texas, man was caught using the firefighters' Jaws of Life to break into tanks.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
It’s the word.
They say my car is the one that runs the best on biodiesel from this used grease, but I have nowhere (garage or shed) to process it, so I don't bother.
I have a carpenter friend with a DuraMax diesel who has been collecting grease and making his own fuel for years. He does it in a two gar garage with room to park the big truck, mower, rototiller and more. He estimates his fuel costs are a bit over a buck a gallon and the set up cost him under $300 about six years ago.
Is the processing basically pumping thru a good filtration system?
There is a little more to it than that:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/yago101.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/biofuels/4302655
http://www.tinygreens.org/al_french.html
Funny. worked in a KFC during high school. Drained those J’s hundreds of times and never knew it was anything but smelly shortening full of extra crispy crunchies.
They didnt let us call it Grease, it was shortening before and after the frying. lol.
OK so it’s bit more involved. Thanks.
Yea worked at a burger joint in the 60’s they used to steal it then too! It was sold and reprocessed! Used to p’o the boss it was usually good for a couple fifths of Old Crow.
I have fools steal my netal chips all the time. Since there is only one metal recycler they know it’s obviously stolen booty at the yard. And it’s pretty obvious that machine shops don’t load up machined chips in the back of a station wagon and drive to the yard.
Eh, this isn’t new. Decades ago when renderers payed for grease people were stealing it all the time, then when the value tanked we had to pay the renderers to haul it away. Now grease has value again. And so the wheel turns.
1. Does the metal recycler take the material anyway?
2. If not, has this resulted in any arrests?
3. Has this made you want to increase security of you recyclable material?
I don’t understand why they won’t just go in during business hours and offer them money for it.
Legal, legit, and the American way.
“I have a carpenter friend with a DuraMax diesel who has been collecting grease and making his own fuel for years.”
And your friend is not paying the associated road taxes that are levied on fuels.
If I were him I’d not tell anyone I was doing this or the state will will charge him with a crime. I knew a farmer back in the late 1970’s that converted his truck to LP Gas using a kit for a tractor because it was cheaper than gas and he got into a lot of trouble.
Big Brother wants his tax money from motor fuels.
Please note. I have no animosity towards your friend - but he needs to be very careful unless he is paying the fuel taxes on the bio-diesel he makes
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