Environmental Grease Management: How to Be More Eco-Friendly

While competently and correctly managing fats, oils and grease (FOG) is a legal requirement in the United Kingdom, there are many other positive effects that a comprehensive grease management system can have. As well as reducing pollution caused by kitchen byproducts, a robust environmental grease management system can protect your equipment and infrastructure, help reduce odours and pests and support sustainability.

In this blog post, the experts at Aqua Mundus explore how solid grease management services and systems can help commercial kitchens minimise their environmental impact. Let’s get started.

Put simply, environmental grease management is ensuring that the FOG waste from your kitchen has as little impact in the ecosystem as possible. This can be done in several ways, from ensuring you have a grease trap fitted to having a specialist company take your FOG to a certified waste facility where it can be recycled and reused – as biodiesel for example. Neglecting proper grease management can cause ecological harm, clogged infrastructure and non-compliance fines.

By ensuring you’re separating the fats, oils and grease from your kitchen effluent before it reaches the sewer, you are stopping potentially harmful pollutants from getting into the wild, including the local watercourses, rivers and even the sea. This hugely reduces contamination and protects aquatic life from the damaging effects of untreated grease.

FOG can be recycled into a surprising number of products, reducing the need to use brand new materials for a number of products. Everything from biodiesel, biogas and industrial lubricants to compost additives, soaps and detergents can benefit from recycled FOG, giving your waste products huge potential and helping the circular economy.

If your FOG isn’t being properly managed, it can collect and decompose in the drains around your property and inside your kitchen. This causes unpleasant odours, which is bad for hygiene and bad for your staff and customers. It can also attract pests like rats and flies. Robust environmental grease management can alleviate and eliminate all these worries.

If kitchen waste products are allowed to build up in your pipes, then blockages, overflows and costly repairs are never far behind. Beyond this, if FOG makes it into the sewer system you’re actually breaking the law. By intercepting FOG with a grease trap or grease dosing system, you’re protecting your infrastructure and helping keep the sewers flowing freely.

Sustainability has never been so important, and the planet is slowly but surely changing in attitude to ensure that eco-friendly practices are the norm. Demonstrating a commitment to sustainability shows your customers that you’re actively thinking about your impact on the environment and are mitigating against any negative effects.

Grease traps are brilliant at doing their job but will need cleaning and emptying from time to time. Implement a regular schedule to ensure your devices are always working at their most efficient, or talk to a company that can provide grease management solutions on your behalf.

Staff training is vital, so ensure your employees understand how your grease traps and drain dosing systems work in order to keep FOG removal in your commercial kitchen as efficient as possible. Staff need to be able to spot when things may not be operating correctly.

Business owners and kitchen managers will be fully aware of the importance of grease traps, but letting your staff know about the benefits of correct environmental grease management helps foster a shared commitment to legal compliance and best practice.

Keep your equipment up to date – grease traps and dosing system technology has come a long way in recent years. Talk to the experts at Aqua Mundus to ensure you have the best solution for your volume of FOG production and to ensure you are fully compliant with the law.

Address your grease management issues before they escalate – not only can we repair breakdowns, we can also provide temporary grease management solutions to cover any downtime. Routine inspections and upgrades help prevent costly repairs, minimise waste and ensure your kitchen stays environmentally responsible.

Here at Aqua Mundus, our engineers have over a quarter of a century of experience in the environmental grease management sector. Whatever your grease management needs are, we can advise, supply and install the ideal solution for your commercial kitchen. On top of this, we also offer auxiliary services such as cleaning, emptying, maintenance and certified waste removal.

Get in touch with us today to discuss your needs and book your free site survey to discover just how effective your grease management system could be.