Oil

Reuse cooking oil to make bird cakes from solid fat and seed.

Can be recycled at: Kerbside: no Bring Sites: no Battlefield HRC: Yes

Never pour engine or fuel oil down the drain – it can pollute water courses and water supplies and harm wildlife. Don't pour cooking oil down the drain as it can cause blockages.

Combustion: Waste oil used as a direct source of energy must undergo basic treatment to remove water and particulates before it is fit for use as fuel. Higher levels of pre-treatment can remove water, sediments, metals and additives. The oil products from these processes have similar properties and emissions levels to virgin oils, but cost and volume constraints mean that these do not tend to compete directly.

Cracking: Various technologies exist for cracking waste oils for use as automotive or gaseous fuels. A typical process starts with filtering the oil to remove any particulates that might damage the equipment, after which any water is flashed off. The remaining oil is cracked in a vessel such as a kettle or a kiln, before fractionation into various cuts.

Oil Filter Recycling: Most garages and workshops send oil filters for recovery at specialist plants. The standard process is to compress the filters, squeezing out the oil, which can then be treated using one of the above processes. The solid remainder, compressed into a block, is passed to metal reprocessing plants, although the contaminated nature of the filters means that the consignment has to be treated as special waste.