Laughing Stock Farm, Freeport, Maine

Collection

We collect UCO from local food service establishments.  UCO is the fryolator oil once it is no longer acceptable for cooking.  Since the goal of the project is to develop a system that will be practical for small farms and greenhouse operations, we have tried to use equipment readily available at a reasonable cost.  The restaurants are currently paying between $1.00 and $2.00/gallon to have a rendering company haul the oil away where it gets cleaned to meet the specification for a commodity called Yellow Grease (YG).  YG is primarily used as a low cost nutritive supplement in the animal feeds industry.  We collect the oil at no cost to the restaurant.  This arrangement allows the project to benefit two sectors of the local economy.

Set Empty Drums At Restaurants

Once the restaurants have agreed to participate with us, we set 55 gallon drums in a place convenient for the restaurant workers.  The drums we use are reconditioned, open top, steel drums with tight covers and locking bands.  Although these drums are slightly more expensive, $35 each, they are pressure tested to ensure they will hold liquids, and are coated to resist corrosion.  We have some drums that are over two years old now, and show no signs of deterioration.  We had hoped that we could get 3 years life from the drums, but we are confident that they will last for six years or longer.  Our drums will be used twice per year, so the cost is expected to be about $3/fill, or about $0.05/gallon.  

A few smaller oil users store the oil in the original polyethylene containers until we can collect these containers.  When they are ready, they call us to come pick them up.

Restaurants Fill Drums

The restaurants monitor the quality of their oil in the fryers.  When the oil will no longer produce a high quality fried food, it must be discarded.  Every restaurant has a different method of replacing the fry oil.  In general, though, they collect the oil in our 55 gallon drums.  

Pick Up Drums And Transport To Farm 

We use a hoist and drum lifter, both available from Grainger Industrial Supply, to lift the full drums into our pickup truck.  The full drums weigh about 400 lbs., and this equipment makes the task easy.

Store Oil In Drums At Farm 

At the farm the drums are handled on 2ftx4ft pallets that hold two drums each.  Our small farm tractor, fitted with material handling forks makes moving the drums very easy.  We keep full drums separate from empties, and try to use the oil on a first in first out basis to minimize any problems from old degraded oil. 

Any facility that stores more than 1320 gallons of any petroleum or vegetable oil is required by the EPA to have Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasures (SPCC) plan (40 CFR 112).  This planning process is intended to assure that facilities think about how they store their oil and what they would do in the event of a spill.  The regulations require that a secondary containment system exist that will hold 115% of the volume of the largest tank storing liquid fuel.  By storing in the 55 gallon drums, the containment needs to be only about 65 gallons.  It helps that our oil is solid from October 1st through the end of May, since solid oil won't spill.  It also helps that the oil is a food product and that we have a compost operation on the farm where we currently compost the oily food wastes that are collected with the oil.

Processing

Send mail to lisa@laughingstockfarm.com with questions or comments about our farm

Send to ralph@rturner.com with questions or comments about our energy project. 

Copyright 2008, Laughing Stock Farm
Last modified: February 01, 2008