Fats, oils & grease can cause plumbing problems for residents and eventually congeal into issues for the city’s wastewater system too, Dallas Water Utilities said.
DALLAS — When it comes time to clean up your Thanksgiving turkey feast, Dallas Water Utilities has a simple request: hold the grease.
Every year, thousands of gallons of cooking oil, fats and grease end up dumped down drains, DWU said — which can cause big problems for homeowners’ plumbing and, potentially, even for the city’s wastewater treatment system.
“Grease is kind of the worst thing that you can have in any kind of pipe,” said Darrell Poore, the superintendent of the Dallas Central Wastewater Treatment Plant. “Just like grease in your arteries. It’s not good to have that because it causes blockage.”
He oversees operations at the 300-acre facility visible from I-45 south of Downtown, which processes more than one hundred million gallons of wastewater a day.
“If we can get our residents to remove the grease fats and oils the proper way, it benefits us all,” he said.
Dallas and other North Texas cities are a part of the Defend Your Drains initiative, which provides resources for alternatives for people looking to dispose of cooking grease and oil.
Poore recommends pouring the liquid grease into a can, container or non-plastic bag provided by the DWU at Dallas libraries, then allowing it to cool before throwing it away. Other, larger quantities of cooking oil can be dropped off at drop-off locations across the metroplex.
“This time of year, we have a lot more people cooking turkeys, so we have a lot more drop-off points,” Poore said.
Disposing of the grease properly can save homeowners from a plumbing bill and save the city from having sanitary sewer backups, he said.
“For us, that’s having us have to call in some of our own people who are trying to spend Thanksgiving with their family to have to come out there and solve these problems,” he said. “It affects everybody.”