Fats, Oils, Grease and Food Solid (FOGs) Best Management Practices

The local ordinance requires food servicing establishments to follow best management practices to ensure that the commercial kitchens do not contaminate the sewer system by releasing fats, oils, grease, and food solid waste originating from the kitchen. To prevent any environmental threat and plumbing issues that cause lead to hazard spillage are a series of activities that effectively manage and control FOGS waste disposal that originate from the kitchen. BMP focuses highly on the following:

Restaurants and other food & beverage establishments are known to generate substantial cooking oil, grease, and food solids, also known as FOGS waste, every day. If not managed or disposed of properly, it can cause significant issues such as sewer sanitation overflows that can impose a hazardous danger to the public. Animal fat, waste cooking oil, and food solids entering the sanitary lines are some of the major causes of sewage back up, so city inspectors are adamant about used cooking oil disposal and grease trap or grease interceptor cleaning.

Grease waste is known to adhere to pipes which can eventually cause it to clog. Sewer blockages or spills are unpleasant and very difficult as well as expensive to clean up. Sewage backups present a health hazard as raw sewage may carry harmful bacteria and pathogens. It is vital to ensure that all fats, oils, grease, and food solid waste from restaurants are appropriately disposed of by a licensed waste hauler at an approved wastewater treatment plant.

Grease Trap & Grease Interceptor Cleaning Service

To prevent citation and or grease trap and interceptor overflow, BMP requires all food servicing establishments to place a preventative maintenance plan protecting the city's sanitary line. All grease recovery devices must be fully pumped out, extracting all FOGS and waste liquid content inside. It's the business's responsibility to ensure that the device's content does not exceed the 25% FOGS to wastewater ratio.

Waste Cooking Oil Disposal

It no circumstance that cooking oil from commercial kitchen deep fryers are to be disposed of down the drain. Used cooking oil or grease waste originating from the kitchen requires an inedible kitchen grease hauler or a grease company with proper equipment and resources to haul, dispose, or recycle the waste. Furthermore, grease collection companies will provide the necessary storage container for the oil to be placed to extract it out carefully and neatly. After the used oil is removed from the restaurant, the grease removal company must provide the necessary document known as a manifest report. The city requires this report as proof that the waste oil is disposed of according to the regulations set by the local ordinance.

Shortage On Grease Trap Cleaners

Shortage of technicians and stricter regulations on waste water treatment plants has cause major halt in the industry. Excessive FOGS content, improper, and lack of cleaning of both grease traps and grease interceptors may see a major increase in initial cleaning cost. Excessive FOGS content inside the grease interceptor exceeding the maximum of 25% allowable as well as FOGS waste stored inside the tank for long periods of time become harder to break down.

With high demands and shortage of service providers, do not be surprised if companies are back logged for weeks.

As if these hurdles were not enough, recently one of the largest animal rendering and grease trap waste treatment facilities in Southern California was ordered by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to stop their operations reported by CBS. Due to this incident, many food servicing establishments are finding themselves having trouble finding service providers for grease trap cleaning and inedible food waste disposal service. The fact that there are not too many rendering and food waste treatment plant in the Southern California, this can be a disaster for the food servicing establishments businesses.