Properly dispose of fat, oil and grease this holiday season

BOARDMAN — Aqua Ohio reminds customers that they play a role in ensuring their local wastewater system operates properly, from the pipes that run from their homes and businesses to the treatment plant itself. This holiday season, Aqua offers customers the following tips for the proper disposal of fat, oil and grease:

• Never pour grease down sink drains or into toilets. Instead, carefully pour warm, not hot, grease into a metal can, wait for it to cool, and dispose of it in the trash.

• Use strainers in sink drains to catch food scraps and other solids.

• Scrape food scraps and grease into a trash can.

Aqua reminds customers that garbage disposals do not keep fat, oil and grease out of plumbing systems or prevent clogs, and that common ingredients like butter, lard, sauces and dairy products can all contribute to blockages. Homeowners should also avoid flushing any wipes down the toilet, even if they are labeled as flushable. Wipes don’t break down and are a leading cause of backups in home plumbing, and can contribute to larger blockages in wastewater systems, as well.

“The holiday season is a good time to remind customers that they play a critical role in keeping household plumbing, wastewater collection systems and treatment plants operating efficiently and effectively,” said Aqua Ohio President Edmund Kolodziej. “While fat, oil and grease go down the drain as liquids, they solidify and, over time, can completely block pipes and cause raw sewage backups in homes and overflows in streets. We want to make sure our customers are prepared around the holiday season to not only avoid a mess, but also the cost of repairs.”

Fat, oil and grease can also clog a household grinder pump, which is a mini sewage-pumping station with one pump for an individual home. Grinder pumps are used where gravity sewer lines cannot be used. The single pump sits inside an underground tank and pumps wastewater produced in a home into the sewer line.

Aqua Ohio is the Buckeye State’s largest investor-owned drinking water and wastewater utility and serves about 500,000 customers in 14 counties. Visit AquaAmerica.com for more information, or follow Aqua on Facebook at facebook.com/MyAquaAmerica and on Twitter at @MyAquaAmerica.