May 30, 2008
As Oil Prices Soar, Restaurant Grease Thefts Rise
By SUSAN SAULNY

Source

The bandit pulled his truck to the back of a Burger King in Northern California one afternoon last month armed with a hose and a tank. After rummaging around assorted restaurant rubbish, he dunked a tube into a smelly storage bin and, the police said, vacuumed out about 300 gallons of grease.

The man was caught before he could slip away. In his truck, the police found 2,500 gallons of used fryer grease, indicating that the Burger King had not been his first fast-food craving of the day.

Outside Seattle, cooking oil rustling has become such a problem that the owners of the Olympia Pizza and Pasta Restaurant in Arlington, Wash., are considering using a surveillance camera to keep watch on its 50-gallon grease barrel. Nick Damianidis, an owner, said the barrel had been hit seven or eight times since last summer by siphoners who strike in the night.

“Fryer grease has become gold,” Mr. Damianidis said. “And just over a year ago, I had to pay someone to take it away.”


Continued

Here in Portland, meth is a problem. So therefore scrap metal thefts are also a problem, as people gotta support their meth habits. It's not just copper and high value metals. A couple of days ago, thieves cut apart a children's jungle gym, probably for the metal.

I think they're stealing the cooking oil to run their cars not to fuel Meth labs. But I guess you never know.

Right. Just another example of those squeezed for money stealing formerly worthless stuff.

It's called American Ingenuity.

Another example from the newspaper today. Bleacher of children collapsed when they were getting their pictures taken. Reason was that (likely meth-addicted) scrap metal thieves had removed the back cross braces to sell.

Most restaurants will give it to you if you ask, this is a stupid criminal, just ask, idiot!!!

That's not just a Portland problem, that's happening all over the USA. Catalytic converters are being stolen for the metals, statues are being stolen left and right and destroyed in attempts to claim the metal, copper pipes and wiring are being stolen from construction sites and abandoned buildings...it's out of control.

I was hoping this thread would go in the direction of discussing Bio-Fuels.
But if you want to talk about Meth I guess I can't stop you.

Sowwy. I thought it was about theft of formerly valueless commodities

Now it costs 10 times more for the things we used to make here. Stealing grease, cutting up abandonded houses, hell, I even heard of people stealing manholes and fire hydrants.

I don't understand the big deal over this...it costs the restaurant big money to have a grease hauler pick that stuff up and dispose of it. If anyone's losing on this, it's organized crime. They do most of the private restaurant garbage hauling, LOL`at least in this neck of the woods that's true. Oh, yeah, did you know, when you put your garbage into a garbage can, you no longer own it, the garbage company owns it. The oil thieves are sealing from the grease man, not the restaurants.

Hey remember when people started stealing old new papers that were left out for the recylers? Nobody stole them till the Recyle plants became profitable and started paying a little money for them by the ton?

In deed, one of the things about collecting grease from restaurants if you ask them for it, if you're Cameron Diaz (for her biodeisel vehicle), that is, they'll give it to U for free.