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How a Grease Trap Can Reduce Your Carbon Footprint?


Nov 23, 2021
carbon footprint from oil to grass and clean

Grease traps are required by law for food service businesses of all types in Georgia. They do help protect the environment, but they’re especially important for municipal infrastructure. The simple answer is grease traps tangentially reduce your carbon footprint by preventing FOG from making its way into the sewer system and eventually the water supply.


Although FOG isn’t traditionally measured carbon, it still matters for the health of your community.


What Is a Carbon Footprint?


Carbon footprints are generally calculated as a person, household or business’s consumption, emissions from transportation and energy use. Consumption means food, water and consumer goods of all kinds.


Grease traps don’t really have an impact on any of those metrics except in the respect that they prevent future energy costs that would be required to process FOG out of wastewater in the sewer. They prevent certain types of waste from getting into sewers, enabling it to be captured and processed elsewhere.


The argument can also be made that preventing the energy and material waste generated by cleaning or replacing clogged sewer infrastructure is a carbon footprint-reducing benefit that’s shared among all Atlanteans.


At the end of the day, your consumption is the same regardless of whether you have a grease trap. Although a clean and properly functioning grease doesn’t really impact your CO2 emissions or energy use, it is an important part of running a responsible business.


Are Fats, Oils and Grease (FOG) Bad for the Environment?


If they’re not disposed of properly yes. It takes a bit of downstream analysis to truly appreciate how FOG discharge might affect the environment.


Fats, oils and grease aren’t emissions that create smog in the air or carbon monoxide that gets trapped in the atmosphere for decades or centuries. FOG intrusion also isn’t the same as a dangerous chemical spill or oil spills that coat wildlife in petroleum (at least not exactly).


Essentially, the risk of FOG escaping into sewers due to broken or clogged grease traps is that FOG builds up and leads to blockages or backups of sewers or septic tanks. These overflows or backups can potentially lead to FOG making its way into the environment. FOG isn’t just loaded with nutrients that might imbalance local wildlife, it’s also full of pathogens and bacteria. Those pathogens and bacteria can pose a health risk to animals and people.


Although FOG doesn’t put smog into the air and disposing of it properly doesn’t lessen your business’s consumption, allowing FOG intrusion in sewers can eventually have a negative impact on wildlife. The only way to prevent that from happening is to properly capture and dispose of FOG in properly maintained and regularly cleaned grease traps.


Not Just About FOG


Getting FOG in Atlanta’s local water table isn’t great, but it’s not necessarily the main motivating factor behind grease traps.

Sewer clogs and backups won’t just release FOG into the environment. In fact, the majority of what would be released into the environment during a septic tank or sewer backup won’t be FOG, it’ll be raw sewage. Raw sewage going into groundwater or streams – not to mention streets, parking lots, homes and businesses – is bad for not only the environment but public health and safety.


FOG is one of the biggest contributors to sewer clogs and blockages – and it can be relatively easily avoided by simply requiring every food service business to have an adequate amount of grease trap capacity and requiring those businesses to have their grease traps serviced and cleaned on a regular basis.


How You Can Avoid FOG Buildup at Home


At restaurants it’s relatively easy to be responsible with FOG disposal. Just get the necessary grease traps installed and then contract with Southern Green Industries and we’ll keep your grease traps cleaned and properly maintained without you needing to lift a finger.


What you do at home with your grease is a bit more complicated and labor intensive. You can accomplish the same goal and avoid putting grease down your drains by collecting it in resealable bottles of some kind. Then visit the City of Atlanta’s Office of Solid Waste Services page.


There you’ll find some drop off solutions for the safe disposal of your home waste cooking oil. Just visit the recycling center when you have enough collected bottles to make it worth your time, drop them off and go about your day. It’s a pretty simple process and a great way to protect your neighborhood’s sewers.


Schedule a free grease trap cleaning quote by calling us at (404) 419-6887.


Ways Food Service Businesses in Atlanta Can Reduce Carbon Footprint graphic
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