An absolute must in some dishes but if we want to avoid another Fatberg what can we do to reduce, re-use and recycle?
Reduce
Not all methods of cooking use oil, try alternatives to frying – grill, bake, steam, poach or slow cook instead
Measure out how much you use rather than pouring liberally into the pan, some foods release fat when they cook so start by adding a small amount and only add more if you need to
Use low-fat sprays or oil rather than butter
Reuse
Depends on what you’re cooking and how much, but for some dishes you can keep the oil in the pan and cook something else in the same oil (don’t use the same oil to cook meat then make a vegetarian meal though)
If you have lard or suet you could make fat balls for birds, don’t use cooking oil though as it can coat bird feathers
Recycle
Find your nearest cooking oil recycling location, if there isn’t one close by you could set one up! The Unblocking the community website has lots of useful information.
Safe disposal
Never put fat down the sink. Pour extra fat in to a solid container e.g. a tin can or glass jar and continue filling it until full, then seal it and put it in with your rubbish. You can freeze it and put it in your bin bag the night before collection to help stop foxes smells it and ripping open bags to find it
Use kitchen roll to wipe the pan before washing to soak up any that won’t pour out
Fascinating Facts
Thames Water has 108,000 km of sewers, and spends £12 million a year on clearing blockages or ‘Fatbergs’ from the sewers.
Fatbergs are made up of fat, cooking oil, sanitary products, wet wipes and other bits of household rubbish that has solidified into a large mass in pipes in our sewer system
Thames Water clears 40,000 blockages a year caused by these fatbergs.
West London has some of the highest incidences of sewer blockages.
Over the past 5 years there has been 13,417 blockages in Harrow, 10,690 in Hillingdon, 9,928 in Hounslow, 8,382 in Ealing, 7,985 in Brent and 5,298 in Richmond. In comparison, the entire county of Oxfordshire has had around 7000 blockages in the same period.
Almost 300 homes in Richmond were flooded with raw sewage in the past 5 years as a result of ‘fatbergs’
12.8 million pumpkins are due to be left uneaten this Halloween. This is a fraction of the 6.6 million tonnes wasted by households each year. We want our residents to make the most of the humble pumpkin and start to fight food waste year-round. Not so scary Pumpkin soup INGREDIENTS (Serves 4) SOUP: About 1kg…