What’s the difference between high and low quality used cooking oils and compost?
Vegetable oil is used for cooking and frying. It’s liquid at room temperature and can be many shades from a light yellow to a dark brown. High quality used vegetable oil is a clear liquid, light in color with no water or particles; it is the kind that can be most easily used to make biodiesel. Low quality used cooking oil refers to lower grade lipids including animal fats and pan grease. This product is often dark brown in color and highly contaminated with food particles. It’s very difficult to recycle for biodiesel production, but can be turned into other industrial biofuels. Compost in this context means food scraps. Griddle scrapings, animal carcasses, breading, and other food particles are often mixed with cooking oil. They should be strained and separated from the oil and disposed of with the rest of the compostable materials. What about shortening and lard? Shortening is another term for partially hydrogenated oil, which contains transfats. We strongly recommend against the use
