Recycle your cooking oil at the HWRCs

25/1/2010

Residents are now able to recycle their used cooking oil at both Smallmead and Longshot Lane Household Waste Recycling Centres.

Two new cooking oil collection tanks arrived at the Reading and Bracknell sites this week for people to make use of. Any cooking oil collected at the sites will be recycled into clean electricity.

Pouring cooking oil down the drain is not only illegal, it can cause blockages, bad smells and attract vermin. However, each of the collection tanks installed at Smallmead and Longshot Lane can hold 1,000 litres, which will produce enough electricity to power one average household for a whole year.

Cooking oil is the latest addition to the long list of things that you can recycle at both sites including which include batteries, books, cartons, foil, glass bottles and jars, light bulbs, mobile phones, printer cartridges, britta water filters, shoes, textiles, electronic items, wood, car batteries, paint, used engine oil, scrap metal, plasterboard, soil, hardcore, rubble and garden waste.

The oil tanks were installed by by Living Fuels — part of the British group Renewable Energy Generation — in partnership with re3, the partnership between Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham Councils and Waste Recycling Group (WRG) which aims to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill and increase recycling over a 25 year period.

Living Fuels´ operations director Rob Murphy says: “Just one litre (that´s about 1/3rd of what you´d find in your average chip pan) of used cooking oil can be converted into a new green fuel called LF100 and produce enough clean electricity to make 240 cups of tea! The use of used cooking oil in electricity generation reduces carbon emissions meaning that everyone can play a part in building Britain´s renewable energy capacity.”

Smallmead and Longshot Lane Household Waste Recycling Centres are open Monday to Sunday 08.00 — 18.00 Winter Months (1st October — 31st March). Monday to Sunday 08.00 — 20.00 Summer Months (1st April — 30th September).