Recycle Your Thanksgiving Cooking Oil With City

The City of Smyrna and Keep Smyrna Beautiful need your help to reduce costs and help make the city’s fleet of service trucks more environmentally-friendly.

In 2012, the city’s sewer, street, and trash collecting trucks were modified to allow them to accept biodiesel fuel made from recycled cooking oil. In addition, the city built a 1,200 sq. ft. recycling plant through the help of a federal grant.

However, all the recycling plants and conversion kits in the world won’t save the city much money or save the environment if there’s no used cooking oil being donated to the city for conversion to biodiesel.

It costs the city $1.10 to produce a gallon of biodiesel fuel from used cooking oil, city spokeswoman Jennifer Bennett said. The lowest price for diesel in the Smyrna area is currently $2.29.

“A big benefit to the program is improving the operation of the City sewer system by reducing the amount of cooking oil getting into the system,” Bennett said.

To donate your used cooking oil to the city for conversion to biodiesel, all you have to do is get the oil back in to the original plastic jug it came in, or an empty milk jug. Once you’ve collected it all, drop it off at the Smyrna Recycling Center at 3475 Lake Drive.

The cooking oil recycling program is open to non-residents of Smyrna, too.

For more information on the recycling program or Keep Smyrna Beautiful’s efforts to make the city greener, contact them at (770) 431-2863 or akirk@smyrnaga.gov.