Your doctor, nutritionist, or personal trainer may be telling you that grease is bad for your diet. But, you should also know that grease and oils are terrible for the health of your plumbing! If you are draining the grease from your pots and pans into your kitchen sink, you are creating a very serious and expensive problem which may require help from a professional plumber.
Why Can’t I Pour Grease in My Sink?
Greases, fats, and oils are lipids. These lipids are compounds sourced from animals and plants. They are hydrophobic meaning that, due to the fact that they lack any polar part to allow them to dissolve in water, they cannot mix with water and stay separated.
Animal fats and greases congeal or solidify at room temperature in nature as do many cooking oils from plants. This can cause blockages fairly quickly. Cooking oils such as vegetable, soy, corn, and canola oils are plant based and, even though they remain liquid at room temperature, they can adhere to sides of pipes and create buildups which catch debris causing additional blockages.
Not only does this create a hazard for your home, these lipids can collect in sewer systems and cause expensive and hazardous blockages within the main sewer lines in the neighborhood. The fatty acids can bing with calcium in sewer systems causing massive collections of oily build-up. This is messy business. But you can play your part in preventing this.
What Should I Do If I Poured Grease Down the Drain?
If you have already poured grease down the drain, the best immediate solution is to pour boiling water down the drain to liquify the grease along with a good amount of liquid dish soap while running hot tap water to flush away liquified tap. Soap permits oil and water molecules to bind in an emulsion; soap is polar on one end and non-polar on the other, so it has properties similar to both oil and water, which creates a link among the three substances.
If you have tried this, and you are still having problems, you may need to call a professional plumbing service like DRC Plumbing and Sewer to safely remove the blockage.
How Do I Dispose of Grease & Oil
You should dispose of fats, greases, and oils in the garbage. Always wait for the grease to cool to a safe temperature. Then, you can pour or scoop the oil into a container such as a leftover glass food jar, and then throw it in the garbage can. If you have a small amount of cooking oil, you can pour the cooled oil over some paper towels in the garbage and wipe the pan with a paper towel to collect the remaining oil.
If you need any help, our plumbing team is on call 24/7 at 708-203-7057.
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