Safety Measures To Take While Dealing With Used Cooking Oil

If you are in a business that generates used cooking oil, you need to train your employees how to handle the vegetable waste oil safely. This can prevent many freak accidents in the kitchen and personal injuries that can affect your business reputation.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2019, there were 93,800 non-fatal injuries in the full-service restaurants. Many of these accidents happened in the kitchens and warranted at least a day’s absence from work.

If you leave nothing to chance, you can change this. The culprits include fire, hot and cold cooking oil, to mention but a few of them. Keep reading to see how to safely handle old fryer oil to prevent accidents.

Let the oil cool down

It is recommended to let your fryer oil cool down to about 250°C (121°C) so that you can transfer it from the fryer to a container, which will be used for transport to the recycling center. 

This is still very hot, and it can still cause third degree burns if it lands on your skin. This is why you must cover up appropriately.

To cool down to this temperature, the oil takes about 2.5 hours. Even after transferring it to the final container, it should be left to cool down to room temperature before transporting it.

Even cold cooking oil is dangerous if it spills

Most of the attention is given to the hot cooking oil for fear of scalding. But even the cold frying oil is dangerous and if it is not handled properly, it can cause serious accidents.

If the oil spills onto the floor, it will cause slips and falls, which can in turn cause the victim to injure their head, or any other part of their body on the kitchen counter, appliances or other items.

The same standards you would apply to the hot fryer oil, extend them to the cold oil too. Try to keep it out of the way and out of the sinks too.

Pouring cooking oil down the sink clogs the pipes, and this can cause serious plumbing problems. Even if it doesn’t clog the kitchen pipes, the oil fills the grease trap faster, thus requiring more frequent emptying, costing more money.

Remember, cooking oil can be deceiving, and it can look cold while it is actually hot.

The key thing is… no matter how busy your commercial kitchen is, the waste fryer oil must be handled carefully.

Cover up properly to handle hot cooking oil

When deep-frying foods, the cooking oil needs to heat up to a temperature of 350 to 375°F (177 to 191°C). This is really hot, and it can cause serious accidents in the kitchen if it is not handled with care.

When removing the cooking oil from the fryers, wear heat-resistant gloves that cover the wrists fully. This will prevent any of the hot oil from splashing onto your skin.

You also need to protect your face, your feet, and the rest of your body. You can wear a safety mask to prevent the oil from getting to your face.

For your body, wear a heat-resistant full body apron and on your feet, you should wear closed toe shoes.

Give a shoutout to the rest of the kitchen staff to keep them alert when you are transferring hot frying oil from one place to another, or from one container to another. Pausing things for a couple of seconds will not run the business down.

Transport the used fryer oil safely

You will want to get the used fryer oil out of the kitchen, and so you need to transport it safely. You need to have specialized containers for this, and not the regular buckets. Since the oil will not solidify at room temperature, transporting it from one place to another in an open bucket can cause spillage.

Also, never transport the oil in pots. Rather, you should pour it into an approved container for safety. It is also important to transport just the right amount that you can carry. If you carry more than you can handle, you increase the risk of dropping the load, and spilling it onto the floor.

The containers for storing the used frying oil should be labeled clearly and covered so that no one adds anything else by mistake.

Use tightly-lidded bins or oil caddies to store and transport it to the waste oil recycling center. They will keep the oil intact even when they are banged from side to side.

Declutter the kitchen

A commercial or even a home kitchen should be kept clean and clutter-free all the time. This makes it easy, and safe, to move things around. If you are handling hot fryer oil, it can be quite risky if you have to jump over obstacles.

There should be a space that is designated for the cooking oil only and nothing else should be kept there. This helps to remove the guess work from the picture and even the new kitchen employees can know straightforward what goes where.

At the same time, sensitize the employees about disposing cooking oil into the sinks. This can prevent a lot of trouble, including clogging in the grease trap.

Clear the cooking oil spills as soon as they happen

It is impossible to avoid oil spills in the kitchen, but they need not be dangerous at all if you can address them as fast as possible. 

This means using age-tested methods to prevent the spread of the spill, by using absorbent material such as corn flour or baking soda to absorb the oil. If the spill is small, you can mop it up with paper towels.

Wrapping it up

Knowing how to handle used fryer oil safely is very important for the well-being of your staff, the cleanliness of the kitchen and controlling the spread of microbes.

Besides, the used oil can make you extra revenue if you keep it properly, and sell it to an old cooking oil recycling company.

Contact Grease Collection today, and we will provide you all the information you may need on the safe handling of used fryer oil.

We bring you clean, industry-recommended containers to store the oil. Once we collect it, we shall give you a receipt for the oil, and bring you clean replacement bins.

We collect your fryer oil responsibly, leaving your place neat. If there has been a spike in business, and you have generated a lot of used oil, call us! No amount of old cooking oil is too much for us to handle.