Management of fats, oils, and grease (FOG) is crucial to keeping your kitchen fully functional. When FOG goes down a drain, it begins to cool, allowing it to stick to the inside of pipes and gradually solidify. As it continues to build up, the congealed FOG can cause clogs, resulting in waste backups, horrible smells, and various other costly issues for your kitchen and business.
To help keep it under control, here are some FOG management best practices you can use to train your staff and incorporate into your business:
When disposing of excess cooking oil or grease, the best thing to do is let it cool in the pot or pan and then pour it into a separate container with a lid. Cooking oil can actually be collected and recycled at appropriate facilities. Mixtures of oil, grease, and food waste, however, need to be collected and disposed of in the garbage.
Though they require regular emptying, strainers and drain screens are an effective and simple means of preventing solid food waste from making it down the drain. We highly recommend that they be installed in all sinks or floor drains in your kitchen.
The number one reason FOG makes it into a drain is due to pre-rinsing and washing dishes and cookware. While a drain stop or strainer might catch the larger solid chunks of food waste, it won’t prevent residual oil, butter, gravy, creams, or food drippings from making it into the drain.
Before pre-rinsing or washing your dishes, pots, and pans, use a paper towel to wipe off any remaining FOG and dispose of it in the proper waste receptacle.
Solid food waste like animal bones, fat, egg shells, coffee grounds, and vegetables can easily block drains. Even when using garbage disposals, solid food waste can build up very quickly and obstruct water flow.
Instead of putting sending solid food waste down the drain, we highly recommend that you throw it in the trash or recycle it. A lot of food waste can be recycled or composted. In fact, most major cities in King and Pierce County offer recycling services for solid food waste and other organic waste.
Aside from being more environmentally friendly, recycling or composting solid food waste can help to reduce costs of solid waste disposal, which can be very high for commercial kitchens. Having a plan in place for recycling/composting your solid food waste can also help minimize the risk of food waste going down the drain. In turn, this can help reduce how often your grease traps end up needing to be serviced.
Your grease trap is your best line of defense when it comes to managing FOG in your commercial kitchen. However, for it to be effective, your grease trap needs to be cleaned regularly.
If a grease trap is too full, it will be ineffective at preventing FOG from passing into your main drain lines and sewer. According to SMC 21.16.310, a grease trap MUST be cleaned out when 25% or more of the grease trap tank is filled by FOG. This is known as the 25% rule, and is common across most Washington municipalities.
This is where we come in. West Coast Grease Traps has been providing affordable, customized grease trap cleaning and maintenance solutions to King and Pierce County since 2011. We provide regular grease trap maintenance that is custom-tailored to both the scheduling needs of our customers and requirements of local municipalities.
We also work directly with our customers to help them develop effective Best Management Practices for their commercial kitchens.
Let us be a part of your ongoing FOG management plan. Call us today to schedule an inspection!
