At 125 pounds of potatoes per person per year, it is not a far stretch to say that the humble spud is one of America's favorite foods. Baking them and slathering them with butter, sour cream, cheddar and bacon bits is one thing, but our allegiance to crispy fried spuds takes on a whole new level of adoration when 365 degree oil is added to the mix. Come to think of it, we love just about anything plunged into searingly hot cooking fat -- just stroll through any summer festival and the sight of deep fried Twinkies-dill-pickles-Coca-Cola-mac-n-cheese-and-Mars-Bars will give you all the proof that you need. The fast food joints and restaurants dotting our landscape fulfill the majority of our culture's insatiable hunger for golden fried goodness, but what actually happens to all of the liquified fat that is left over?
We may be in the midst of a green revolution, but on-the-premises cooking oil recycling among restauranteurs has not yet made it into the mainstream. Despite the fact that multiple online and municiple resources continue to crop up for them, the majority of food establishments pay a fee to have oil-recycling companies remove their spent grease rather than fussing with it themselves. Those companies then resell it on the commercial market for a tidy profit. Don't get me wrong -- it's nice to know that the material is not just being chucked into landfills, but a select few recognize just how valuable this waste can be. We've all heard of vehicle conversion kits that channel restaurant fat into go-go juice and rock stars who power their tour buses with french fry oil, but it's rare that restaurants profit off on the one resource that they seem to have an endless supply of. Instead of paying someone to do their dirty work, however, a few select establishments are quietly and industriously purifying the grease emerging from their kitchens into soap and candles.
Right in Los Angeles, MOZZA restaurant (owned by flame haired TV chef Mario Batali) crafts liquid hand soap and bergamot scented candles using the purified waste grease from their flagship location. Branded under the Further label, each 8 ounce soap container is priced at $18.50 and $24.00 per 11 ounce candle...talk about being a seriously clever way to clean up in the restaurant biz. On the other side of the globe, Japanese cafe Chubby has a symbiotic relationship with Filt candemakers, located directly above them. All used cooking oil is filtered by Filt, tweaked with natural scents and coloring, and then poured into sterilized glass jars and containers that have been rescued from local recycling bins. They even request that customers hang onto their empty candle containers for future use or kindly return them to Filt so they can be recycled once again. Imagine if every fast food joint and restaurant emulated this artisan eco-effort, employing eager greenies the whole world over to craft soaps and candles on site! These waste-to-treasure artifacts could then be used to reward patrons for their green efforts, such as supplying their own reusable container for takeout meals, etc. Anyone care to chew the fat on this super green form of waste management?
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