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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Trash Day and Oil Jugs




When restaurants get fryer oil, it comes in 4.5 gallon jugs. My local restaurant puts the used oil back in the jugs they came in. At my convince, I collect them from a garage next to the restaurant.

One of my regular duties as a husband is to take the trash out. Someone has to. Most weeks I put out a bag or two of crushed 4.5 gallon vegetable oil jugs. They cannot be recycled because they had oil in them. It messes up the recycling process.

They are not particularly strong jugs. In fact, in recent years they've been getting thinner and lighter. Sometimes I'll use the ones in better condition a few times to collect oil from other sources. Once in a while one will spring a leak. Good thing I'm hauling them around in a converted ambulance. Those vehicles were made to be hosed out. I'm sure mine has had worse things on the floor than waste veggie.

Each jug weights about 35 pounds. Yesterday I picked up 25 of them. That's 875 pounds of fuel. Guess what I do to stay in shape? The money saved by using free veggie adds up. That's over 112 gallons of free fuel. It's replacing about $450 worth of diesel. That certainly makes it worth the handling. I've a rack to stack them on for when I need them. I always use the older ones first as they've had longer for the junk to settle out of them.

When I crush up those jugs for the trash, I think about all the money I'm not spending on motor fuel. Just like the government, I don't have to factor in the price of fuel when figuring the cost of living.

-Sixbears

14 comments:

  1. Wonderful, and how many miles do you get to the gallon?

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    Replies
    1. About the same as diesel 12 - 19 depending on what I'm hauling and how fast I'm going.

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  2. Gives ya a warm fuzzy feeling, doesn't it. That's why I'm pumped about alternative energy sources.

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  3. Phyllis (N/W Jersey)November 28, 2012 at 5:48 AM

    Have been seeing a lot lately about people using veggie oil. Does anyone else in your area use it?

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    Replies
    1. There are a few people. There's a guy in town with an old diesel Benz. Buddy of mine uses it in his dump truck and his tractor.

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  4. Waste not want not, how resourceful is that?

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  5. Definitely ahead of the rest of us. You got it going on, my friend!

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    Replies
    1. Naw . . . I'm just too lazy to get a real job and pay for fuel like everyone else.

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  6. Replies
    1. That is the price of entry to this game. In your climate you could probably just cut your diesel 50/50 with filtered veggie and not have to momdify anything.

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