Broomfield partners with Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises for Thanksgiving holiday recycOil® & food drive 

Broomfield will participate in the Holiday recycOil® & Food Drive multi-city event, joining Arvada, Aurora, Boulder,  Denver, Evergreen, Fort Collins, Longmont, Loveland, and Pitkin County.  

This one-day event is Saturday, Nov. 24, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Broomfield residents are asked to bring used cooking oil to the Norman Smith Service Center, 3001 West 124^th Ave. in Broomfield, to recycle, and also bring non-perishable food items to donate to Broomfield FISH, the city’s food bank. 

Not only is Thanksgiving the perfect time to help feed the less fortunate, it is also a time to raise awareness about used cooking oil. Fried foods, including fried turkeys, are becoming more popular and used cooking oil is a waste substance that can be converted into useful products, including biodiesel, which Broomfield uses in some city vehicles.  

Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises, a Colorado-based waste cooking oil recycling service provider, is the lead  partner in the event.  The organization is building an integrated biofuels production facility in Colorado.  

Improper disposal of used cooking oil is extremely costly to homeowners, commercial establishments and municipalities.

Recycling used cooking oil (also known as FOGs – “Fats, Oils and Grease”) is always the best option. Many landfills do not accept the substance, since in its liquid form it can contaminate water tables.  Pouring it down the drain is a leading cause of sewer backups for homes and businesses. Soap and hot water do not break down the grease; they  merely carry it further down the drain where the water cools and oils begin to congeal in the pipes, eventually forming a wall of grease.  

A few examples of costs to residents and cities: A grease clot in Cobb County, Ga., in 2001 set off a 600,000 gallon sewage surge into the Chattahoochee River; an EPA audit blamed 41percent of LA’s 2000 overflows in five years on FOGs (Wall Street Journal: June 4, 2001). Bill Thomas, Loveland’s Water and Power Department pretreatment coordinator, has stated that “discharging FOGs into the sewer system puts the city’s and customers’ sewer mains at risk for a backup. A sewer backup can be costly to clean up and a potential health hazard.”  

However, FOGs don’t have to be an expensive and troublesome waste; they can be converted by professional recyclers and bio-refineries into viable resources such as biodiesel.  Biodiesel is a renewable fuel made from waste cooking oils and renewable energy crops.  As one component of Colorado Governor Bill Ritter’s New Energy Economy, renewable fuels relieve local dependence on foreign oil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve regional economies. 

Recycling and donation instructions:  Holiday recycOil® & Food Drive

Used cooking oil should be brought in a sealable container (Tupperware/coffee can/etc.). Residents will be instructed to pour used cooking oil into the recycOil® containers at the drop-off site and take the container home to be reused or cleaned and recycled.  

Donated food items must be canned foods or dry packaged goods, or cash/check donations. For information on Broomfield’s drive, contact Shirley Garcia at 303.438.6329. The Broomfield cooking and waste oil collection site is open Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the first Saturday of each month from 8 a.m. to noon.  Closed Mondays. If the first Saturday is a holiday weekend, the center will be open the second Saturday instead of the holiday weekend. 

*** REMEMBER, FRY SAFELY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, AND NEVER LEAVE HOT FRYERS UNATTENDED!*** 

recycOil® is a trademark of Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises.