I got caught out with a new recipe the other day. I don’t usually deep-fry anything at home as it feels like such a waste of oil, however as I only realised that this was necessary once I had already started cooking I had no choice but to follow through (I have learnt not to freestyle)!
On the plus side the Butter Tofu Curry that I was making was absolutely delicious, however I was then faced with the question as to what to do with all of the used oil.
My first thought was that I could re-use it however after a bit of research I decided that it was too much of a risk for me in terms of having to make sure that I don’t heat it to much or too often so that it doesn’t release harmful free radicals into the food or even catch alight! I therefore then started to look into if it could be recycled. I knew that commercial cooking oil could be turned into biofuels to produce heat and electricity as my previous employer had had this system in their office building, however I wasn’t so sure as to if there were the facilities to recycle domestic cooking oil waste.
To my delight I discovered that my local recycling centre (Martyrs Lane) does actually accept cooking oil for recycling! So I have made sure that I have removed any food particles from the oil by running it through my frying pan’s splash guard and I have put it into a dry container (a mixture of oils apparently doesn’t matter but water in it does). So now I just have to remember to take it with me the next time I am passing by and apparently just ask the staff where to put it.
It does make me wonder how many people know that they can recycle their cooking oil as I could only find the information by specifically searching for it on the council’s website. It is actually quite a valuable product to recycle and so I would hope that all local authorities would be offering and advertising this service. There are companies that will collect and pay for large quantities of used cooking oil from commercial premises and so if recycling cooking oil can be financially beneficial surely there should be no excuse not to!
Woking Community Recycling Centre – Surrey County Council (surreycc.gov.uk)
BOSH! Butter Tofu Curry – National Vegetarian Week 2021 National Vegetarian Week 2021