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What should you do with all that grease left over from the turkey?

Don’t pour it down the sink, warn Bend officials – especially if you’re a restaurant

By Erin Golden / The Bulletin

Published: November 26. 2008 4:00AM PST

Over the past six months, Oakley Taylor has visited nearly all of the nearly 300 restaurants and food establishments in Bend — but she’s not just stopping by to sample the food.

Taylor, an industrial pretreatment technician with the Bend Public Works Department, is completing her citywide tour to make sure restaurant owners are in line with a somewhat unglamorous city regulation — a new rule that requires all commercial food establishments to use a special trap to keep grease, oils and fats from entering into and clogging up the city’s sewer system.

Though many businesses are already using grease traps, Taylor said some are still disposing of their sludge in the sink and others aren’t sure how to properly maintain the trap system.

And after a period of growth that’s put new demands on the city’s sewer system, city officials said it’s more important than ever that people are careful about what they pour into the sink.

“Most times, when people put stuff down the drain, it’s out of sight, out of mind,” Taylor said. “But there’s a whole procedure going after it leaves the sink. It’s not gone; it’s still there, and someone has to treat it.”

Whatever goes down the drain ends up in the city’s complex, interconnected series of pipes. Most of it flows easily though the system to the wastewater treatment facility. But grease, which builds up along the sides of the pipes, is a different story.

“I like to describe it like the clogging of the arteries — it builds up, adheres, and makes the diameter of the pipe smaller,” said Kelly Graham, the city’s industrial pretreatment coordinator.

When grease builds up inside several pipelines, the result can be a clogged sewer that could back up or overflow into homes or businesses around the city.

Taylor said she didn’t know of any recent cases of a major sewer backup related to clogged pipes, but city officials said they have had to do extra work to clean the pipes, especially around the holiday season.

Rules for restaurants

Graham said restaurants, which typically deal with the largest amounts of grease on a daily basis, should avoid the problem by installing grease traps in sinks to filter out sewer-clogging grease, oils and fats. She said the devices can range in price from a couple of hundred to a few thousand dollars.

Grease collected in the trap has to be collected and disposed of in the trash or at the landfill, Graham said.

Lucas Taylor, the sous-chef at the Bend Brewing Company, said his restaurant has had a grease trap for years, and it works well — even if clearing it out isn’t a pretty job.

Taylor said he usually has to dispose of 5 to 7 gallons of grease every week. “It’s my least favorite part of the week, but it keeps our drains clear, so between us and the city, it’s not getting our pipes clogged,” he said.

Residents can help

And though residential water and sewer users are not required to install any kind of grease traps, Graham said pouring grease down the drain is still a bad idea.

She said the system gets particularly clogged around the holidays, when more people are cooking big meals and don’t think twice about dumping all of it in the sink.

“There’s so much coming down after Thanksgiving, you can virtually see the dinner in the drain,” Graham said.

City officials say residents should pour all of the grease that comes from cooking the Thanksgiving turkey — or any other grease, oils or fats — into a container, like an empty coffee can, store it in the refrigerator and put it out with the trash. Any remaining grease should be soaked up with paper towels, rather than rinsed out into the sink.

Erin Golden can be reached at 541-617-7837 or at egolden@bendbulletin.com.

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