FOLEY, Ala. — Residents of the City of Foley are asked to participate in a cooking grease-recycling program that will be used to manufacture bio-diesel for use in the City of Orange Beach’s heavy equipment. Officials with Riviera Utilities and the City of Foley are quick to point out, however, that Orange Beach won’t be the only benefactor of the recycling program that begins today.

Richard Peterson, superintendent of Gas, Water and Wastewater at Riviera Utilities, said cooking oil or grease clogged lines have led to a number of “minor events” in the Foley area, “Enough to justify wanting to do something about it.”

According to Peterson, cooking grease collects in Riviera’s sewer lift stations and has to be sucked out on a quarterly basis.

“If people are proactive at home, it saves us a lot of trouble,” Peterson said.

David Horton, superintendent of Public Affairs and Marketing at Riviera, said the expense of having to dig up an area where cooking grease has encrusted a line is expensive for the utility, yes, but it can be expensive for homeowners too. Cooking oil and grease can clog sinks and that can lead to plumbing expenses.

Leslie Lassitter, environmental manager for the City of Foley, said a number of people in the area are still on septic tanks, and pouring cooking grease down the drain is especially detrimental to septic systems.

Peterson said it was Lassitter who contacted Riviera about a recycling program. Riviera, in turn, talked with Orange Beach and the city said they would take all the cooking oil the City of Foley could supply.

Orange Beach has purchased the equipment to make the bio-diesel that is being used in some of their equipment. As Peterson describes it, the bio-diesel process involves “three drums – a sequential batch thing” to which methanol is added to create glycerin, which distills at a certain point to produce what Horton calls a “cleaner burning fuel.”

The equipment used to make the bio-diesel costs approximately $7,500, Peterson said.

“The city’s (Foley’s) goal in the future is to get enough participation to also manufacture bio-diesel that we can run in our equipment, but at the beginning the investment is high,” Lassitter said.

At present, Riviera Utilities and the City of Foley’s payoff in the cooking grease-recycling program is strictly environmental. That’s one reason Wolf Bay Watershed Watch and its late executive director, Stan Mahoney, wanted to support the recycling program. Indeed, WBWW’s logo will be on the cooking grease containers along with Riviera’s and the City of Foley’s.

“The most important thing is that recycling the grease instead of letting it go into the water makes for cleaner water and prevents oils and greases from getting into drinking water, where it has to be treated,” Lassitter said.

“The thing that’s always been in my mind is that it’s the right thing to do,” Horton said of the recycling effort.

THE WAY IT WORKS

Peterson describes the cooking grease-recycling program as working on the same basis as a “propane bottle exchange at a convenience store.”

In a press release issued by Riviera Utilities, Riviera General Manager Mike Dugger said Riviera has built container storage bins that have been placed at convenient locations throughout Foley. The empty plastic containers that residents can use at home can be picked up at the storage bins. Residents take the containers home and pour their used cooking oil or grease into the containers once the grease has been allowed to cool.

Once full, a container is taken back to one of the recycling stations and exchanged for an empty container.

“To begin with, container bins will be located at Wal-Mart, Cain’s Piggly Wiggly, Winn Dixie and behind the Foley Civic Center,” Dugger said.

“Customers can also pick a container up at the main office lobby of Riviera Utilities or at Foley City Hall.”

The used oil will be collected from the bins and transported by City of Foley employees to Orange Beach. Lassitter is quick to point out that the recycling program does not include motor oil.

According to Peterson, the impetus for the recycling program came from the City of Daphne’s grease-recycling program instituted to eliminate sewer overflows and create an alternative fuel. The City of Mobile has also put a bio-diesel program in place. Gulf Shores has not yet bought the bio-diesel kit but, like Foley, takes its used cooking grease to Orange Beach for its use.

“The Foley City Council jumped right on board,” Lassitter said of the recycling program. She said Councilman Ralph Hellmich was instrumental in providing support for the effort.

“Some (council members) even wanted to invest in a bio-diesel program here, but we thought it best to see how participation would go,” she said.

Horton said it’s hard to say at this point how much used cooking grease will be collected here.

In the release issued by Riviera in connection with the cooking grease-recycling program, Horton noted that Stan Mahoney wanted to see the recycling program expanded to Elberta, Magnolia Springs and Summerdale.

Calling Mahoney a “true friend of nature and the environment,” Horton said the recycling program is a “great way for us all to continue his legacy.”