Grease is generated by food preparation and food service facilities. Significant quantities of that grease accumulate in building piping, municipal collection systems, wastewater treatment plants and onsite system drain fields. Grease frequently interferes with subsequent treatment plant sludge disposal or passes through the treatment plants, fouling receiving waters both surface and subsurface. Escaping grease in outflow and sludge can serve as transport and growth support for pathogenic organisms, resulting in contamination of lakes, rivers, beaches and groundwater.

Grease is a, if not the, principal element of collection system failure, whether through pipe-wall accumulation capacity reduction, misalignment point accumulation restrictions, fitting impact cementations, root penetration point accumulations, moving agglomerations, concentrated corrosion, or all of the above. The eventual and inevitable result of excess grease in drainage piping is sanitary sewer overflow (SSO).