Grease Thieves
Brewing illegal whiskey in a bathtub out back is so eighty years ago. These days, backyard stills in California are much more likely to be turning stolen restaurant grease into barrels of bootleg biofuel. Now that gas prices have gone up, a car that runs on used fryer oil sounds increasingly appealing.
Unfortunately, this means that grease-haulers are losing thousands of dollars a year, prompting those in the business to look into locking their trash cans. But even locked barrels of grease are disappearing into the gas tanks of Californian cars. It's no wonder, considering that the price of soybean oil has tripled in the last three years. The liquid dripping off your French fries has never looked this good.
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3 Comments:
It's not likely to be animal fat actually, but the grease used to fry french fries and the like, which tends to be canola, corn, or soybean oil. I guess some animal fat renders out into the grease from cooking stuff, but animal fat is too expensive for places like McD's, Burger King, Denny's etc.
simon at 10:28AM on 05/28/08
@simon: Thanks for pointing that out; I've updated the post.
roboppy at 10:53AM on 05/28/08
Aye, that's me retirement grease!
Vanessa at 9:26PM on 05/28/08