Could Oil Banks Help to Fight Fatbergs?

Fats, oils, and grease (FOGs) are making their way down our drains and into our sewers, where they cool, coagulate and mix with wet wipes and other solid matter to form destructive fatbergs. Not only do these fatbergs increase the likelihood of drain overflows, sending raw sewage into our waterways, but each fatberg also costs water companies tens of thousands of pounds to remove.

Fatbergs are a significant problem, and many ideas and inventions are currently being developed to prevent them.

Besides the traditional stainless steel passive grease trap or automatic grease trap, food businesses can now use add-ons like bio-dosers, which break down FOG in drains or traps. Water companies are also educating both food businesses and the general public, emphasising the importance of not flushing anything except the 3Ps (pee, poo, and paper) and avoiding pouring FOG down the drain.

Initiatives have also made it easier for the public to properly dispose of FOG. Councils across the country encourage people to store FOG in plastic bottles and include it with their food waste on collection day.

Another FOG waste collection method, oil banks, has been trialled in recent years.

In 2015, Sainsbury’s partnered with Scottish Water, Olecco, and Zero Waste Scotland to trial cooking oil collection banks in seven Scottish Sainsbury’s car parks. Customers could deposit household FOG waste in plastic bottles into large bins, which were then converted into biofuels.

In 2017, Norfolk City and South Norfolk Councils, Anglian Water, and Living Fuels launched a similar initiative called Keep It Clean, setting up oil banks in supermarket car parks.

Despite the familiar format, the Norfolk oil banks faced issues. Living Fuel workers found gas canisters and broken glass in the FOG bottles, posing health and safety risks. As a result, all eleven oil banks were removed, and the trial was abandoned.

One possible reason is a lack of public awareness. Many people didn't understand the danger of pouring fats, oils and grease down the sink or purpose of the oil banks, leading to misuse. The public wasn't ready for easily accessible FOG disposal.

Oil banks may still be a viable idea. If public awareness increases, they could return, with misuse becoming less frequent.

In the meantime, commercial cooking oil banks, accessible only to local businesses with good grease management practices, could be beneficial. This could formalise existing informal FOG waste pooling arrangements.

Oil banks could simplify grease management for small food businesses, encouraging them to adopt proper practices and spreading awareness.

Fatbergs are forming nationwide, and while fast food businesses are often blamed, the reality is more complex.

Fast food businesses, despite using large amounts of cooking oil, are increasingly aware of the FOG problem. They use oil filtration to reduce the frequency of oil replacement - this saves costs and reduces the amount of waste oil being disposed of. They also put heightened importance on good grease management practices as they know that should a fatberg be found near their premises, water companies will be knocking on the nearest food service doors for answers. Good grease management helps to avoid water company fines. They also install and maintain grease traps and use bio-dosers to further limit inputs of FOG into the sewer system.

FOG can come from various sources:

• Factory canteens, prisons, hospitals, offices, universities, and school canteens can produce significant FOG waste. While an individual meal may require only a small amount of oil to be used, and produce only a small amount of FOG waste – that FOG waste adds up if you make three meals a day, seven days a week for nearly one and a half thousand people. These locations are still subject to the same education and regulations as foodservice businesses, so they will generally already have grease management solutions in place.

• Households: Improper disposal of cooking oil and flushing of wet wipes contribute to fatbergs. It can be confusing and complicated for members of the public to get rid of their used cooking oil. So, much of it ends up being poured down the sink through sheer convenience. As households are also very unlikely to have a grease trap or indeed any other grease management solution, that FOG goes straight to the sewers. An individual household’s FOG output is small, even over a year, relative to a small business. But, added up, the FOG output of a town or city of residential homes can be huge. Add to that the impact of the wet wipes which many people are still flushing down their loos without a second thought – sending them into the sewers where they become key to the structure of fatbergs – and it is clear that the general public play their part in creating the FOG problem.

• Coffee Shops: Coffee grounds don't break down and may contribute to the problem. Ideally, they should be sent to the compost heap, but, in the rush and hurry of a coffee shop, this can seem like just a little too much work – some of those grounds will inevitably be sent spilling into the sink. We don’t yet know whether they really do help produce fatbergs, because the study of fatbergs is in its infancy. We only know that it is unlikely that those coffee grounds and other small solids do much to help the situation.

It’s not just down to the usual suspects behaving badly. In fact, as those usual suspects begin to behave much better than everyone else, the fingers are beginning to point at the rest of us and the usual suspects are actually the unusual suspects.

The FOG problem requires a collective effort. Businesses need to implement better grease management practices, and households need to learn proper FOG disposal methods. Installing simple sink strainers is a small step in the right direction.

Solving the fatberg problem requires teamwork - educate, spread the word and do your bit with responsible FOG disposal.