What many think is a harmless kitchen cleanup could unknowingly be an act of plumbing sabotage.
The holidays are coming. For many, that means the house fills with their chosen favorites, and likely some delicious meals.
With the bustling chaos of the holiday season, it’s easy to be distracted while you’re cleaning up after a meal, as you carry on a conversation with someone you haven’t seen in forever, all while trying to get those greasy dishes clean.
And of course you’re in a hurry. Because who wants to be stuck scrubbing pots when there’s all-day football or you've got a score to settle over a fierce game of Monopoly after your bestie embarrassed you last year?
But that crucial moment, the one you tried to speed up so you could get on to better things, could cause a nightmare. The simple act of turning on the faucet to rinse those pots and plates in the sink is exactly what could lead to a massive repair bill, a really gross backup into your house, your yard or even the park you enjoy so much.
Let’s stop that from ever happening.
Fats, oils, and grease
You know it as butter, meat trimmings, peanut butter, vegetable shortening, salad dressing, gravy, and mayonnaise, but it has another name: FOG. FOG, aka fats, oils, and grease, is the villain in your holiday story if allowed to make its way into your pipes. FOG comes from animal fats, vegetable fats, and oils used to cook and prepare food. As fats and grease cool, they solidify, clinging to the walls of your pipes and creating stubborn blockages. Over time, these blockages accumulate, narrowing your pipes, trapping additional debris and ultimately obstructing water flow.
What amplifies the problem over holidays is that there tend to be a lot more people putting stress on individual and community pipe systems, said Troy Zwerneman, Brazos River Authority regional operations programs coordinator. A household sink or sewer system may be designed for four or five people, but when 20 people are all brushing off their plates into the sink and sending things down the disposal, that’s when issues can happen quickly, Zwerneman said.
“Scrape off your plates into your garbage. Even the runny or liquid stuff. Even the gravy and the salad dressing,” Zwerneman said. “Wipe that off into your trash if you can. You want as little of that going down the sink as possible. And I know that nobody wants to pour liquids into their kitchen garbage can, because then you'll get a hole in it and drag it all through the kitchen on your way out the door. If you can, put it into a container and then throw that into the trash.”
Inside your home, FOG can create clogs in the pipes, leading to slow drainage, unpleasant odors, and even sewage backups. In extreme cases, it can necessitate a plumber's visit to clear out your pipes or even more costly repairs, such as pipe replacement. The disaster doesn’t stop within your four walls; it can become a problem for your neighborhood, too, and contaminate local water bodies.
“You might think that if you don't have a septic system, being on a city sewer would move the grease away from your house by running hot water and dish soap, then it'll be all right,” Zwerneman said. But that’s not the case.
He adds that if FOG manages to make it through your home’s pipes, it could still wreak havoc on your neighborhood.
“There could be a blockage just down your street where the city would have to come out and close the road for a week to clear an overflow, or at a nearby park with a stream that runs alongside it,” Zwerneman added. “Then your sewer rates will go up next year due to the high costs incurred from the repair.”
When blockages lead to overflows, untreated wastewater can be forced up city manholes or drains and spill into rivers, lakes, and oceans, polluting ecosystems and endangering wildlife.
If the FOG manages to make it out of your pipes, past your neighborhood, and to the local wastewater treatment plant, the problem doesn’t disappear, said Nathan Wilde, BRA regional wastewater operations superintendent.
“As the fats, grease and oils flow into the city’s wastewater treatment system, the biological process of breaking down the wastewater creates an issue for the microorganisms that have to work to break it down,” Wilde said. “So instead of the microorganisms functioning to break down the main pollutants that we worry about, they have to focus on the grease before they can handle the other pollutants, which adds more loading and more to the process.”
“It's amazing what that grease can do and build up with the FOG,” Wilde said. “We see it throughout the facility, and it does wreak havoc on the wastewater system.”
A new routine
The good news is that preventing FOG-related issues is simple. Here are some ways to keep fats, oils, and grease out of your drains:
- After cooking, allow FOG to cool and solidify. Once solid, scrape it into a disposable container and throw it away.
- Before rinsing pots, pans, and dishes, wipe them with a paper towel to remove excess grease.
- Scrape food scraps into the trash with a paper towel or napkin, not in the sink. The garbage disposal does not remove FOG, it just makes the pieces smaller.
- Keep a designated container in your kitchen specifically for collecting used cooking oil. Once it's full, dispose of it in accordance with your local waste disposal guidelines.
- Some solid fats, such as bacon grease, can be composted if you have a composting system that can handle it.
It's way easier and a lot cheaper to be smart about FOG than to deal with its aftermath.
Taking just a couple of simple steps to stop those fats, oils, and grease from ever entering your drain protects your wallet, your plumbing, and your community.