Special PDI Supplement: Can New Technology Defeat the Age Old Grease Enemy?
Issue: 5/04
Grease problems are making headline news. For years local papers from New York to Los Angeles have reported on how FOG (fats, oils and grease) have gummed up their municipal sewer lines. In June of 2001, the Wall Street Journal cited the enormity of the problem: "American sewers are in a bad way. Three-quarters are so bunged up that they work at half capacity, causing 40,000 illegal spews a year into open water. Local governments already spend $25 billion a year to keep the sewers running, and the Water Infrastructure Network, a coalition of the waste water-aware groups, warns that it will cost $20 billion a year for the next 20 years to keep them from falling apart." According to the National Restaurant Association, total restaurant-industry sales have grown every year for the last 12 years, generating revenues of approximately $426 billion dollars, and the industry generates over three billion pounds of grease every year. With Americans spending more money annually on eating fast food than on higher education, our appetite for fried foods and our love affair for eating out will continue to fuel the grease goblins in our sanitary sewer infrastructure.