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Biofuel Thieves Steal Restaurant Grease
TMB writes "In a move that The Simpson's foretold, thieves have begun stealing inedible kitchen grease for use in biofuels. From the article: 'It's known as inedible kitchen grease, or IKG, which was once deemed waste and used in animal feed, though now is "an elixir in the booming green economy," according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. "The grease’s value as a biofuel is being increasingly recognized," the agency said last month. "IKG is now coveted, which makes it a target for theft.."
Wow, two jokes in one!
It's incredibly easy to convert an old VW diesel to run on kitchen grease. The trickiest part is keeping the viscosity down so you can pump it to the engine, but there's plenty of kits out there with in tank heaters for colder regions.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class, especially since I rule.
Disturbing story on the BBC, a while back, regarding recovered grease from disposal, grease traps, drains, etc. being recycled into packaged cooking oil in China. Yum.
Where's there's opportunity, all that's needed is people with the required ethics.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Well, at least it's not likely to get mixed with sewage to make lard for human consumption like in China.
One hopes so, at least.
What an embarrassing thing to have to admit to your cell mates...
He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"
And I said, "Stealing garbage." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance."
And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Have the restaurants thrown the grease away, or just put it in storage tanks? Maybe the restaurant contracts with legitimate biodiesel producers and they sell or get free removal of the grease by the production company, who then uses it to make biofuel? What you are saying is like saying "going into foreclosed houses and taking the copper wiring/piping out and selling it isn't stealing, because no one is using the house and banks are evil!" It is both morally and legally wrong.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
How do you know the restaurant wasn't going to sell the grease to a legitimate biofuel maker? Just because it's sitting outside in a tank doesn't make it "fair game." A friend of mine collects fryer grease, purifies it, and sells it to larger biofuels companies. He PAYS for the grease when he picks it up from the restaurants. Taking it without paying is fucking theft.
This thing is mine. It is not yours. You have taken it from me. Theft! It's not that bloody difficult. We're not talking about online piracy. This concept has been pretty cut and dry for thousands of years.
Back when I was making my own fuel out of WVO (thats Waste Vegetable Oil, IKG is a new term to me), stores would GIVE US their grease for free. They were paying Rendering farms to haul it off for them. To be turned into dog food usually.
Then biofuel got big, and the renderers started to actually pay a small amount for the oil that they use to get paid to take.
Then, in CA, they got a law passed that said if you haul used veggie oil, you have to have a business license and insurance. It was a scare tactic to get the small time home brewer out of the loop, so that the renderers wouldnt have to compete with home brewers. They even got it classified as a hazardous product!
By the way, the process of turning grease into biofuel is the same as turning it into soap (aka Fight Club), its just a different ratio of the same chemicals. Some Methanol, and some Caustic lye or caustic soda, depending on what your source oil is. Shake and serve!
FTFS: it's not the restaurants that are reporting this, it's a Government Agency. If they were so hot on biodiesel as an alternative to drill diesel they'd be making it illegal to make your own and making nightly runs between restaurants and large privately owned refineries (with such original names as "Shell", "Halliburton", "BP", Texaco"...) and selling the stuff at the same price as regular. The problem for them is it's insanely easy (and relatively inexpensive) to make your own diesel, it'd be as difficult to regulate as alcohol (see: prohibition) and would likely as not spawn an underworld of diesel bootleggers armed with Thompsonsmaybe.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
most grease needs to be filtered before it can be used (or it'll clog your pipes, and then you won't be happy). IIRC there are instructions on what you need to do to turn used vegetable oil into biofuel for your car.
You could definitely dump your grease in there until it gets full, what you'd do with it after that is another question to ask though :)
FTFS: it's not the restaurants that are reporting this, it's a Government Agency
Yes the issue of a broad theft problem is being reported by a GA, and the GA is talking about taking action, but the GA wouldn't know about the problem unless it was reported by the independent restaurants first.
The implication that the restaurants don't care, only the government and its oil lobbyists care, is completely unfounded.
Oh, and also wrong according to TFA:
NPR blogger Nancy Shute reports on how restaurants and recyclers are now putting barrels of so-called yellow grease under lock and key because, as the National Renderers Association told her, it has become "the new copper."
I guess you were under the impression that only the government and the thieves, not the restaurants, knew that IKG could be valuable?
The enemies of Democracy are
People have varying views of rubbish disposal.
In Argentina before they had the crash that the west is about to have rubbish was viewed this way.
But after the 2002 financial crash so many people were destitute that an army of people was born and found searching the dustbins primarily for cardboard.
Now the crash is past this group of people seemingly come out of nowhere at night and clean up the streets. Now people just through rubbish out wherever and there is hardly any governement provided collection. Compare this with western Europe where everything is a cost and a problem to dispose of, so much that people dump it anywhere.
I always suggest working with the market rather than fighting against it. If there is a problem then attempt to steer the market flow rather than trying to make water go uphill.
In this example people who wish to securely transfer ownership to a disposal company should state thier intentions and those collecting otherwise protected by default.
This is the kind of lesson that this economic disaster will tell whether we like it or not.
A blog I run for the wealth
That I thought I read about 3 years ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/us/30grease.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2008/0506/p01s03-usgn.html
http://blog.oregonlive.com/nwheadlines/2008/05/restaurant_kitchen_grease_thef.html
http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/articles/2884/california-cop-is-arrested-for-grease-theft/
And last year
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-09-29-restaurant-grease-thieves_N.htm
But apparently has been around much longer, maybe even before the Simpsons episode (1998)
http://www.salon.com/2000/11/06/grease_wars/
I work in a restaurant. I owned one for a while, too. I can tell you, there are those that want the stuff. The company I had taking mine away, at first, charged me to do so. Another company approached and said they'd charge less, they got into a bidding war with each other. Ended up having it done for free. At the time, I believe it was going into C4 production. Now, at the restaurant I work at, the gentlemen who delivers our mushrooms takes it, and actually PAYS us for it (in the form of an extra box of mushrooms; product we'd use anyway). They use it to keep their 'cave' system at ideal temps, we get free product and free removal of something we have no use for. Win/Win.
Why would you steal from Alice's restaurant when you can get anything you want there?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I was making Biodiesel back in 1996 when Josh Tickell was driving his Veggie Van across the country making big news. Frankly that was the death knell for us as individuals who made their own BioDiesel. I went for years without ever buying a bit of fuel for my car. All the restaraunt folks called me MacGyver and marvelled at my Diesel Mercedes that smelled like french fries. Once BioDiesel caught on as a commercial idea, the recyclers that used to charge the restaraunts for taking the grease started paying for it and locking the restaraunts into "Contracts", and putting locks on the grease containers. It is now a crime to take any grease from a "Griffin Industries" grease tank (the major recycler here in Tennessee), and because of the contracts, the restaraunt can't even give it to you before they put it in the tanks. The contracts are worded such that once the grease comes out of the fryer, it is the property of the recycler. Once something becomes commercially viable, the individual is screwed. I ended up selling my fuel proccessor and getting out of it because I couldn't get any waste oil/grease. The recyclers pay way more for it in order to discourage us from buying it directly from the restaraunts, at least they did back when I was doing it. It may be different now that have run us all out of making our own fuel. In addition, the price of the chemicals went through the roof as well so now your cheaper off to buy dino-diesel, at least if you were doing it for cost reasons. Back in the 90's I was making a 50 gallon batch of BioDiesel for about 50 cents a gallon. Whats happening now I suppose is that some of my brethren are taking it from the grease tanks at restaraunts. Of course now the recyclers can burn you at the stake for that since they can nail you for larceny, transporting biowaste, etc. And they will nail every one they catch to the wall just to make an example of them because they know that there is a lot of us out there. I saw the writing on the wall and refocused my energies towards electric vehicles, solar, geothermal etc. At thats not against the law... Yet....
excepting Alice ... but then we're talking rape, not regular theft
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.