Gobble Grease Toss aims to use recycled cooking oil for biofuel research

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - While you’re cooking this Thanksgiving or frying your turkey, you might want to think about saving the used cooking oil.

The University of Kentucky’s Center For Applied Energy Research wants to use your cooking oil for further biofuel research.

Researchers say they use different forms of fats, oils and grease as a starting material to make biofuels.

These biofuels are chemically identical to petroleum-derived fuels, like diesel, but instead of petroleum, they’re derived from a renewable resource like the cooking oil in your pantry.

According to experts, petroleum is a limited resource, whereas biofuels are more sustainable and green.

Organizers say every year, residents recycle hundreds of gallons of cooking oil at the Lexington Gobble Grease Toss.

It also protects against the harm caused by pouring oil down the drain or throwing it in the trash.

“That ends up in a landfill and in the landfill, it would decompose to methane which is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2,” said Eduardo Santillan-Jimenez, Associate Director of the UK CAER and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the UK Department of Chemistry.

If you want to recycle your cooking oil at Friday’s Gobble Grease Toss, organizers ask that you bring it in a sealed container.

The event is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Redwood Cooperative School. It’s free for all Fayette County residents.

The oil UK’s research center doesn’t use will be taken to Kelley Green Biofuel to be converted into a renewable fuel.

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