Used Fryer Oil in Restaurants the New Target of Thieves

New York – 03.16.2012 An item that was previously considered useless by many is now turning out to be the hot target of thieves across the country.

For years together, restaurant owners have been paying contractors for hauling away used fryer oil that was primarily used as animal feeds or in local gear heads. However, the latest surge of biodiesel in converted car engine has suddenly enhanced the value of these used fryer oils, an essential component in making the biodiesel for automobiles with such converted engines.

“With the demand for biodiesel and bio fuel consistently rising fryer oil has now become a booming commercial commodity in the market. The cost has skyrocketed to 40 cents per pound from the original 10 cents that was the prevalent price a few years ago. No wonder; it is one of the tempting targets for thieves, especially in these days of hard financial times around”, comments a news agency in New York.

Not that the authorities in administration are unaware of these developments. For instance; both California and Virginia have already enacted special statutes for regulating the collection of grease from commercial kitchens. Similar legislation is in pipeline in North Carolina as well. However, when it comes to enforcement of the law, the scenario looks different.

“It’s very difficult to get district attorneys to take it seriously,” said Douglas Hepper, head of the California state agency that regulates the disposal of grease. “They’re busy with murders and meth labs and they have limited budgets themselves, so they have to set priorities.”

Very few cases reach the trial stages in court and even in cases that are tried in the court, the offenders get off with a small fine and it does not prevent them from hitting the dig all over again. Stealing of fryer oil from restaurants from unlicensed haulers causing loss of millions of dollars to the exchequer had escaped the notice of the law enforcement agencies in Untied States for over a decade.

Of course the implementation part is easier said than done. One of the lawyers in Houston, Jon A. Jaworski reportedly has already own a dozen cases representing the thieves and in all these cases his argument was that the used fryer oil should be considered abandoned property and hauling it does not constitute the act of theft or robbery. Also the grease is store in black dumpsters and therefore is easy pickup in night times.

Industry people are trying in their own way to prevent such stealing. One of the ways they adopt is entering into contracts with the hauler companies selling the grease at around $300 per container. Of late police has also started taking note of the growing demands of used fryer oil and their stealing and in 2011 there were around 100 arrests for such theft. However, turning arrests into conviction has proved to be a different proposition altogether.

An example has been set by Darling Company that has over 2000 trucks to pick up grease in different sites of 42 states. It filed a couple of civil lawsuits against companies accusing them of taking its grease and received nearly $60,000 toward damages. But such legal battles may not be cost economic for smaller companies like Sacramento Rendering that serves 2,500 restaurants in Northern California and sustains loss to the tune of $750,000 per annul due to such theft.

It seems that the years when restaurants paid companies to take away their used grease is over. Now it is time for competition to grab the used fryer oil between thieves and companies in contract to take them from restaurants.

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London Restaurants Straw Wars

When was the last time you went to your favorite restaurant to get your meal and without thinking about it you grab a straw or even two or three straws? Also I am sure that you were given a plastic fork, spoon and a plastic cup. Well in London they have realized that this is a problem and they have decided to do something about it.

As you probably already know, recycling is something that is gaining popularity in many countries, especially now that we understand how expensive oil and plastics can be. And not only the fact that it is difficult to find oil and the amount of work that it requires to become plastics but also the incredibly negative impact that this has on our planet.

We all know what straws and other waste that come from restaurants do not always get recycled or end up in the garbage, but they also end up in rivers and the sea. This is having an extremely negative impact to our natural resources. This is the reason why London is coming up with a ban on straws and possibly other plastic items. This new ban may not just affect restaurants but it might also affect bars and cafes.

One way that London restaurants are doing to reduce their amount of waste is to reduce the overall use of plastics at their restaurants. Not only traditional restaurants are working hard on reducing the amount of plastics that are used at their restaurants but also fast food restaurants are looking in to ways of doing this as well. One simple way of doing this would be something as easy as only giving one straw per customer, before you had a straw dispenser and in many cases people would grab more than one straw, by doing this it will allow them to control how many straws a person can get.

This will not only help the environment but it will also be great for business, restaurants spend thousands of dollars a year in plastic forks, spoons and knifes. Lowering the amount of plastics used in their restaurants can help the restaurants lower the cost of operation to provide better service to the public. Different sources have reported that several restaurants in one of the most popular areas of London will start working on this as soon as possible.

At the end of the day no matter if the so called “Straw War” will be great for business but it will also have a great benefit to the environment, lowering the usage of plastic products can have a great impact and it is very important that more restaurants and other businesses start working on similar bans to help our planet. Other countries should look at this example and they should start passing laws that will be applied in similar situations. It is incredible the amount of plastic waste that is used on the daily basis, and the problem is not just straws, but just take a look at plastic bottles of water, unless you leave in an area where clean water is an issue, most likely it is not necessary to drink water out of a plastic bottle to just leave it in the garbage or even on the street.

New USDA Guidelines on School Lunches

Recently, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) created new rules in an effort to boost the nutritional quality of school meals funded by the federal government. Roughly 32 million US school children eat meals that are funded by the federal government.

The new USDA rules are the first extensive change to school lunch rules in over 15 years and they are designed to help combat the growing obesity problem in the US. One third of the nation’s school children are overweight or obese, so the new meal standards are a welcome development for advocates of nutritional school lunches.

The latest changes come just months after Congress bowed to industry pressure to keep pizza listed as a vegetable with regard to school lunches. They also killed a proposal to limit the number of weekly servings of foods like french fries and other starchy vegetables.

The new USDA guidelines double the number of produce servings and mark a shift away from carbohydrates and fatty foods. The new rules also recommend serving only fat-free and low fat milk in addition to change portion sizes to be more appropriate for children. Reductions in saturated fat, trans fat, and sodium are also part of the new recommendations.

These rules are part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act which was one of the major priorities of First Lady Michelle Obama in her campaign to fight childhood obesity. The First Lady has made nutrition, exercise, and fighting childhood obesity her primary effort while the President has been in office.

These new meal guidelines will be phased in over the next few years starting in the 2012-2013 school year and are estimated to cost over $3 billion over the next 5 years. HHFKA provides additional funding to school districts to help pay for the increased cost of serving more nutritious and balanced meals.

Congress created an uproar last November when they blocked the USDA from limiting the number of allowable servings of french fries in addition to ensuring that pizza counted as a vegetable because of the tomato contained in pizza. Large food and beverage conglomerates spent millions of dollars lobbying congress to block the USDA changes including companies like ConAgra, Kraft, and McCain Foods. Critics of the proposed rule changes – primarily on the conservative right – cheered the congressional action by insisting that the rules represented an unacceptable government overreach into the lives of Americans. Despite voting to block government action to improve the nutritional value of school lunches, many of these critics support better nutrition but stress the importance of parents and the community ensuring better nutrition and not the government.

Despite the heavy lobbying by the food industry that prompted limitations in the effectiveness of the new rules, many advocates for better school lunches viewed the guidelines as a victory. Margo Wootan, the nutrition policy director for Center for Science in the Public Interest said, “The new school meal standards are one of the most important advances in nutrition in decades.”

The USDA Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, Kevin Concannon, agreed stating in a conference call discussing the new rules, “What we are announcing today are science-based rules and regulations that are going to substantially improve the meal qualities across the United States for children.”

Other advocacy groups pointed out that the changes will not only have a positive impact on overall childhood health but also help to improve the national fiscal picture as well. The Environmental Working Group said that the changes could help reduce medical bills associated with obesity-related illnesses such as diabetes and other chronic conditions. Dawn Undurraga, EWG’s staff nutritionist, said, “A healthier population will save billions of dollars in future healthcare costs.”

In an effort to make the changes that will take place more understandable to the average American, the USDA gave a number of meal examples. One example of a potential school lunch under the new guidelines could include whole wheat pasta with meat sauce, a whole wheat roll, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, kiwi, and low fat milk. This type of lunch would replace the current school lunch staples that often look like a hot dog on a white bun, ketchup, chocolate milk, canned pears, and celery and carrots with ranch dressing. In addition to the nutritional guidelines, the new USDA rules will increase the number of inspections of school lunch menus.