Episode 12: As We Prep for Thanksgiving, Don't Forget to Recycle the Grease! Learn More With Dana Gray, Of Environmental Services And Reilly Farrell, With Our Stormwater Program

Guidelines for household cooking oil and grease recycling:

• Edible oil products ONLY (cooking oil or grease)
• Allow oil to cool before pouring into container
• Pick up one of our free containers (available at each location) or use your own with a sealed lid, NO GLASS please! 
• No fuel or motor oil will be accepted
• Any questions about the recycling program, please call 205-238-3876

List of Locations of Household Cooking Oil and Grease Recycling Centers: 

• Adamsville Pharmacy, 3633 Gray Avenue, Adamsville, AL  35005
• Birmingham Botanical Gardens, 2612 Lane Park Road, Birmingham, AL 35223
• Bessemer Fire Station # 3, 2316 Morgan Road, Bessemer, AL 35022
• Bessemer Fire Station #4, 495 Flint Hill Road, Bessemer, AL  35022
• Bessemer Recycling Center, 1601 1st Avenue North, Bessemer, AL  35020
• Gardendale Fire Station #1, 1811 Decatur Hwy., Gardendale, AL  35071 
• Graysville Fire Station # 2, 1200 1st Avenue SE, Graysville, AL 35073
• Homewood Fire Station # 3, 250 Snow Drive, Homewood, AL 35209
• Hueytown City Hall, 1318 Hueytown Road, Hueytown, AL 35023
• Jefferson County re-fueling station, 2420 8th Avenue North, Birmingham, AL  35203
• Keep Birmingham Beautiful Office, 4721 Avenue W, Birmingham, AL 35208
• Leeds Fire Station #2, 8475 1st Avenue SE, Leeds, AL  35094
• Midfield Fire Station, 704 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., Midfield, AL  35228
• North Smithfield Greenleaf Heights, 4635 North Smithfield Drive, Birmingham, AL  35207
• Pinson Recycling Center, 4410 Main Street, Pinson, AL 35126
• Tarrant City Hall, 1604 Pinson Valley Parkway, Tarrant, AL  35217
• Trussville Fire Station #2, 7317 Roper Road, Trussville, AL 35173
• Trussville Fire Station #3, 8160 Gadsden Highway, Trussville, AL 35173
• UAB Campus, 620 11th St. South., Birmingham, AL 35233
• Vestavia Hills, 3400 Chestnut Ridge Lane, Vestavia Hills, AL 35216

Have an idea for a County podcast? Contact the Director of Public Information, Helen Hays at haysh@jccal.org

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:19

Welcome to Jefferson County's podcast for the people. I'm your host, Ciara Morrow, here in the Public Information Office at Jefferson County Commission. Today we have some very special guests, Dana Gray in Environmental Services, and Riley Farrell in our Rosen Transportation Stormwater Department. Thank you all so much. Thank you for being with us. Today we have a very special topic coming up on the holidays, Thanksgiving. It's here already. And we got a lot of things to cover here in Jefferson County. But one of the main things we wanted to keep in mind was how citizens can be mindful about recycling, namely grease recycling. Lots of turkey frying going on. But before we go into that, I want you to tell us a little bit about your role in environmental services, and then we'll go right to you, Riley.

Speaker 1 1:10

My name is Dana Gray. I am the public relations coordinator for the environmental services department. And I'm here today to talk about recycling household cooking oil and grease program. We've had this program since 2010 and have seen great results.

Speaker 1:24

Hi everyone, my name is Riley Farrell. I'm with Jefferson County Stormwater Division. While I am not in the division that oversees the fat oil and grease recycling program, fat oil and grease recycling also has the potential to positively impact our waterways. And so then also on this call to share some of the positive benefits of recycling fats, oil, and grease. And that's to go along with other work that I do normally, which is sharing information about things you can do to help our waterways be healthier.

Speaker 2 1:56

And that is very important because a lot of times, you know, people will get mixed up during the holidays, not really knowing that each time we have the opportunity to help our waterways, that is very important. And definitely one where we want to make mention of.

Speaker 1 2:39

Yes. What we're cooking, what eat we're eating, is not always the best for our health or for our sanitary sewer system. So we encourage all of our residents to participate in the household cooking, oil, and grease recycling program. By doing this, you're recycling that grease and disposing of it in a proper manner as opposed to putting it down to the drain where it enters the sanitary sewer system. When this happens, buildup occurs in the sewer system, which can lead to a sanitary sewer overflow, which is not a good thing. Then our guys have to come out and clean that out. And if we don't contain it, it could potentially lead to creating strains which will endanger the ecosystem. So what we ask is that everybody do best management practices and prevent this type of fat soils and grease from entering into the sanitary sewer system by doing things such as recycling your grease or wiping your pan out before you wash it and putting that grease down in the trash can instead of it going down the drain where it could cause blockages over time.

Speaker 2 3:47

And that's important because those blockages build up, correct? So where we think maybe a couple of instances won't have an impact, the more citizens continue to do that, that could ultimately uh cause some severe damage, correct?

Speaker 1 3:59

That's right. And the first backup that's going to occur is potentially in your home. So it's going to be your problem first, which we want to minimize any trouble that our citizens have at any time, but especially over the holidays. So if you're frying a turkey or you have leftover drippings, you know, we ask that you dispose of that properly, either by putting it in the trash can or using our recycling program and bringing us that leftover grease after you fried your turkey, that uh fryer oil, to one of our 20 locations so we can recycle it for you properly.

Speaker 2 4:31

That's awesome. When it's my next question: some methods for recycling that we can use to recycle grease. What are some other methods that you may have off the top? Anything else you want to add to that?

Speaker 1 4:42

No, we just didn't encourage our residents to use a free program. So why wouldn't you use it? We have 20 different locations all over Jefferson County. But at each of these locations, you'll find free recycling containers that you can pick up. Either new and we recycle those when we get them back as well. You take one of those home and you fill it up with your fryer oil or your grease from cooking bacon or hamburger meat or any type of residual that you have after the cooking process. Fill that container up and bring it back to one of our facilities and drop it off, and we'll take care of it from there. You can swap it out and get a fresh one to take home. The only thing we ask is that you let the cooking oil cool off before it into the container because it is plastic, and make sure the lid's on tight. And if you don't have an opportunity to pick up one of our containers, you can use one of your own. Just make sure it has a lid, and we prefer that you not use glass for breakage issues.

Speaker 2 5:35

Awesome. So we'll post the exact location to let citizens know specific locations where they can drop off the grease recycling at some of the facilities, plus the hours of operation. We'll have them listed in the description. So that'll be some great information for them to take, not just on this holiday, but all year round, you know, some of the things they need to be mindful of about the resources that's available to them. Either one of you want to touch on some things that's not a form of grease recycling. Uh you hear people talking about pouring the grease down the drain with the hot water as though that'll diffuse the process.

Speaker 6:08

Yeah, I'm happy to answer that. And and Chiara, you're exactly right. That's not pouring oil and grease down the drain is not a form of grease recycling. While you might dilute your grease, and maybe if you're lucky, it gets your home pipes. The problem is that when that cools down, it has the potential to coagulate, to bind with other things that might be washing down the sewer drain and cause cloggages. And so you're not recycling your grease when you pour it down the drain. You're just bringing it into the sanitary sewer system. The problem with that ultimately is that instead of that water that's flowing down drains, being flushed down toilets, instead of that ending up at a water reclamation facility where it gets cleaned, when that water ultimately gets purified as much as we can before it gets let back out into the environment. When there's a blockage, it doesn't make its way to the sanitary or to the water reclamation facility. Instead, our sewers are designed where if there's a blockage, it's going to go up and out of the sewers so that it doesn't block up people's pipes. And when it escapes sanitary sewers or what we call a sanitary sewer overflow, it ends up on the ground. And when you have that sewage ending up on the ground, it's going to flow downhill to whatever the nearest drainage is or waterway. Um and ultimately it's going to harm the environment. So ultimately, what we want to say is that pouring oil down your drain is not a way to recycle it. It is a thing that can hurt the environment. And so while you can throw it away, that's also way better than pouring it down the drain, either wiping it out of your pan with a paper towel or uh cloth of some sort and throwing it in the trash can, um, or even filling up a container and putting that in the trash can. That's better than pouring it down the drain. What we really want you to do is recycle it, bringing it to one of our facilities that we have in Jefferson County where it can be repurposed.

Speaker 2 7:54

Awesome. Great information. We want to get the citizens all the information they need to know regarding where they can take their grease recycling. What are some of the facilities, hours in operation, and some of the locations?

Speaker 1 8:08

Yes, we have 20 locations. We try to have one in each region of the county. So there's some on the west, on the east, on the south side, all of all over the county, so they're convenient to our residents and for our citizens to use. One of our most popular ones is the Jefferson County Refueling Station at 2428th Avenue North. That is in downtown Birmingham. Can't be more centrally located than that. It is one of our large producers of recycling.

Speaker 2 8:36

You've heard it here. Some great tips on how we can have a great Thanksgiving and still contribute to recycling. The most important, some of the most important factors when it comes to cooking is the grease and how we can dispose of that properly. Again, if even if you don't make it to the facilities, be mindful of not of pouring it down the drain is probably the worst thing you can do. But we definitely want to encourage citizens, especially those who have large families. I know we have a large family gatherings, guys. So they will probably have a lot more than the managed to throw away. And it would be great for them to have something that they can give back. Yeah, Dana, you want to add something else?

Speaker 1 9:14

I wanted to brag not only on the citizens of the county for their participation in our recycling program, but also on environmental services. We are at a 10-year low for sanitary sewer overflows. Awesome. Part of that is obviously due to the diligent work of our employees and our staff maintaining those lines and doing preventative maintenance and keeping everything flowing as it should. But we're also so delighted with the recycling program and the results that we have seen from our residents who participate in it, which has to obviously contribute to us being at a 10-year low for sanitary sewer overflows. Since the program's inception in 2010, we've collected over 45,000 gallons of recycled household cooking oil in Greece. Great. And just want to give a big thank you and shout out, not only to our employees, but certainly to the residents and the citizens of Jefferson County, encouraging them to continue to utilize this free program. It takes everybody chipping in and doing their part to make programs like this successful, and we have definitely seen that. So thank you to our residents.

Speaker 2 10:18

I am believing that we'll continue to add to that streak and increase more in the years with more citizens and residents participating. Thank you so much for acknowledging that. And so, citizens, you've you've heard here, you have a part to play, and we certainly appreciate everyone who has added to this great monumental accomplishment with the recycling so far. And we know that we'll continue to do great things with the help of everyone's staff, and of course, you all, Dana and Riley, with all that you do uh to make sure citizens have the awareness that they need in everything. Do you all want to add anything else?

Speaker 10:54

Just take advantage of this program because it's a really easy way that your everyday actions can positively impact the environment. A lot of people in my job ask, like, what can I do to help the environment or help our water? And a lot of it just boils down to things that you do every day in your life and making sure you don't do the wrong thing or dispose of things improperly because that's really what can hurt the environment. And utilizing our fat oil and grease recycling program is one way that just by doing something really simple with the leftover fat oil and grease you have from cooking can leave a positive impact on the environment and on your drinking walk because we get it from the environment. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 11:30

Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you adding that, and that's of course equally as important. We the little things make a difference. And so when we can take these simple steps to help impact our ecosystem, then it's definitely a plus for everyone involved. And as to the quality of life that we all desire here in Jefferson County and all over. So thank you guys so much for today. If if nothing else, we appreciate you joining us here. We look forward to getting this information out. We'll have more information to come. So we will look forward to giving residents all the information that they need. Unless it's anything else, we thank you so much and we'll see you next time.