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Recycling cooking oil: Now that's a slick idea

Will a Starkey Road tub become a fried and true method to keep sewers cleaner? Largo will find out.

By EILEEN SCHULTE, Times Staff Writer
Published January 6, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT [Jim Damaske | Times (2007)] Grease floats on the surface of water in a sewer pipe last September under Kent Place in Largo. Now the city has a grease recycling site.

Cheryl Putnam unscrewed the top of the green 300-gallon plastic barrel and peeked inside.

Way down below, through the darkness, a thin layer of yellowish liquid was visible in the submarinelike tub.

It was about 2 gallons - or three coffee cans - of fat, probably some of it from holiday turkeys.

Putnam, the city's environmental manager, was delighted.

Without any advertising, green-minded cooks have started dumping their kitchen grease into the receptacle instead of pouring it down the drain and clogging the city's sewer lines.

"It's definitely catching attention," Putnam said.

The residential cooking oil collection site was installed four days before Christmas at the Starkey Road Recycle Center at 1551 Starkey Road.

It sits across from the cardboard, newspaper and glass collection containers and is the only one in Pinellas County, Putnam said.

Although the pilot program is for Largo residents, those who live in other cities will not be turned away if they want to discard their oil at the site.

When the container is about half-full, a company called FCS Inc. will send a truck to pick up the contents for free.

The grease will be washed many times for four days and then be recycled into biodiesel fuel for FCS trucks.

And the aroma from the vehicles' exhaust pipes?

Not bad, says Frank DiBenedetto, who owns FCS with his wife and three daughters.

"You can smell the difference."

Eileen Schulte can be reached at schulte@sptimes.com or 727 445-4153.

[Last modified January 5, 2008, 22:07:12]