| Topic: | Recycle Your Cooking Oil and Stop Feeding the Rats | Forum Home |
| Posted by: | Philippa Bond | |
| Date/Time: | 03/02/11 05:34:00 |
| Ealing started offering a free collection of cooking oil from businesses several years ago. It now seems that residents can recyle their cooking oil too. You only have to see the photographs of the sewers to realise why the rats like it down there and why this is a good idea! Here is the Council Press Release regarding this. "Ealing slick at cooking oil recycling Published 7 January 2011 An Ealing Council recycling centre is top of the tables for waste cooking oil collection. Greenford Recycling Centre has collected the most cooking oil for recycling in London, and the second highest volume in the country. In the last two years, residents have deposited a massive 6,110 litres at Greenford, and another 1,950 litres at Acton making a total of 8,060 litres. Just one litre of used cooking oil can be converted into a new green fuel called LF100 to produce enough clean electricity to make 240 cups of tea. The total amount collected in Ealing is enough to power eight homes for a year or an energy-saving 20W light bulb for each Ealing resident for five and a half hours*. Residents can dispose of old cooking oil at Ealing Council’s Reuse and Recycling centres in Acton and Greenford. The waste cooking oil is recycled by Living Fuels - part of the British group Renewable Energy Generation - to produce a green fuel to power electricity generators which feed into the National Grid. Pouring cooking oil down the sink is a problem for a number of reasons - it clogs up drains and sewers, is hazardous to wildlife if it is allowed to seep into the water table, and it wastes precious unused energy. Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, cabinet member for Transport and Environment, said: “It’s great news that residents have taken to waste oil recycling with the same enthusiasm that they have shown for all our other recycling services. I would encourage everyone to save used cooking oil left over from cooking, and take it to their nearest recycling centre. Not only will this produce clean and green electricity, it will also save drains from getting blocked. “So, do an extra bit for the environment and make recycling your used cooking oil one of this year's resolutions." Acton Re-use and Recycling Centre in Stirling Road, Greenford Re-use and Recycling Centre in Greenford Road, and Southall Re-use and Recycling Centre in Gordon Road are open Mon-Sun, 8am-5pm (between 1 April-30 September) and 8am-4pm (between 1 October-31 March). Further information on recycling in Ealing is available. * Based on statistics from the Centre for Alternative Technology. " |