Grease bandits strike again

by Ellen Slattery, Posted May 9th 2008 @ 12:01PM

Leave it to The Simpsons to accurately predict the future. Remember the episode where Homer and Bart suck the grease from Springfield Elementary's cafeteria to try and turn a profit, but the vacuum explodes and the kids wind up playing "snowball fight" with grease balls?

Well, that scene is now a reality. Okay, not the part about the grease fight - but pretty much everything else.

As the demand for biofuel rises, thieves making to look a quick buck are stealing the "yellow grease" leftover from restaurants that cook their food in veggie fat. Like Homer Simpson, they suck up the substance with vacuums, and can get a few thousand dollars from about 5,000 gallons (grease has shot up to 32 cents a pound).

It's not a job for the dainty thieves: Christian Science Monitor writer Ben Arnoldy describes the smell of a grease rendering plant as "like a combination between a fast food restaurant and a butcher shop, where maybe the meat's gone bad."

Source

Filed Under: Newspapers, Food News
Tags: biofuel, Christian Science Monitor, ChristianScienceMonitor, grease, grease rendering, GreaseRendering, NPR, Simpsons, stealing, thieves