4 Feb 2014
If you’re like most of us, used cooking oil presents a slight problem. How do you get rid of it? Pouring it down the kitchen drain is probably a bad idea, so many are left with the unappetizing alternative of storing it until it’s time to take out the trash. Whatever your experience with the dregs of cooking, we never thought the oil would become a valuable commodity. Well, we learn new things all the time.
A case in point was the subject of an article last week. It described a police search for two alleged thieves who have been accused of stealing used cooking oil. According to the report, Nolanville police have asked for the public’s help in identifying two men who allegedly stole the stuff from outside a restaurant located about 60 miles from Austin. The men supposedly approached the restaurant in a flatbed truck which held a plastic tank, and removed the padlock that kept trespassers and other unauthorized visitors from accessing the restaurant storage bin. Then, so the authorities say, the pair pumped the used cooking oil from the storage bin into the container on their truck.
Ordinarily, we would not have mentioned the case, and we would have chalked it up to an isolated bizarre incident. But we came across an article in the Wall Street Journal from almost two years ago which detailed the rise in cooking oil larceny across the entire country. The message contained in the article is clear: stealing used cooking oil is apparently big business. And the reason, you might be surprised to learn, has to do with technical advances in the fuel industry. Although used cooking oil has long been used (and stolen for use) in animal feed, experts tell us that biodiesel, used as a substitute fuel, is made with vegetable oil or refined fat, has led to a significant rise in the value of cooking oil.
In addition to incidents in Texas, theft of cooking oil has become an issue in many other states, among them Maryland, Georgia, Arizona, California and Virginia.
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Austin, TX 78701
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