This Christmas millions of people will be preparing a traditional roast dinner for the family.
Much time and effort goes into preparing and cooking the roast dinner, but there’s not many of us who like to spend much time clearing up afterwards. In a bid to make light work of the dishes, how many of us will pour leftover fat, oil or grease down the kitchen sink?
Pouring waste liquids down the sink may seem like the obvious way to dispose of them, but did you know that pouring leftover fat, meat juices and food scraps down the sink could harm the environment? Even if you pour hot water and washing up liquid in afterwards, fats, oils and grease can quickly set hard in cold pipes and when mixed with other unflushable items such as wet wipes and sanitary products, can create a Fatberg.
When Fatbergs form in the sewerage pipes they can stop the waste water reaching the treatment works as intended. This means the risk of sewage spilling out into homes, streets, rivers and seas is substantially increased.
Last Christmas the UK consumed around 10 million turkeys and it’s estimated that for every 1 million turkeys cooked, around 250 tonnes of fats and oils could find their way into drains. That’s as much as 40 elephants heading down our sewers.
Please follow these three easy steps to help avoid a festive fatberg this Christmas:
- Scrape or pour leftover fat from roasting trays and pans into a heat resistant container then bin it once cooled
- Wipe out grease left in pans with kitchen roll before washing
- Use a sink strainer to catch any greasy food scraps
Spending a few minutes longer cleaning the dishes can give the gift of clean rivers and seas for 2019 and beyond.
Cook, cool and #binit4beaches this Christmas and ensure the environment is left a healthier place for everyone to enjoy. And what better way to walk off the Christmas dinner than taking a stroll along your local beach.
1 comment
Comment by Steven Howard posted on
Great informative article and it's not just for Christmas! Keep up the good work. We owe it to our planet to ensure we do this at all times! I own 4 dogs and never allow waste food to be thrown away as my four-legged friends lick the plates clean! May I also add that when I walk my dogs I collect their poo and place it in the red bins provided on our walks (of which there are never enough of). I do think that dog walkers in the countryside should allow their dogs to poo in the edges of fields and be allowed to kick the poo into the hedge bottoms, this would be far better than them tieing poo-bags to fences and trees as I have often seen! We need to change the guidelines for collecting pet poo from public places to stop these plastic bag polluting dog owners. The laws should be as follows:-
(1) Collect your dog's poo if it does it on public footpaths or parks and playing fields by placing it in a plastic bag and placing it in the red bin provided.
(2) In the countryside, ensure that after your dog has finished its poo, move the poo off the path and into the deep undergrowth or onto the ploughed part of the farmers' field as there will be no red bin facility in these areas.
(3) If the poo is on a public path in an urban area, ensure that the poo is bagged and taken home to be disposed of in your own refuge bin.
There are probably loads more suggestions that are worthy of putting out there.
As a keen dog owner and angler, I have noticed the amount of fly-tipping has increased throughout the country and am glad to see steps taken against it. However, there are no adverts on the TV anymore criminalising littering! I am sick of seeing the car driver in front or their passengers throwing litter from the vehicle onto the roadsides. We need to revamp the KEEP BRITAIN TIDY campaign. I have often seen children throwing crisp bags on the floor, my child never does this! Why? Because I have instilled that she fetches litter home with her or places it securely in a bin.
As a retired Paramedic aged 53 I would dearly love to work for the Environment Agency in the Yorkshire area, please let me know if any positions arise. Many thanks, Steven John Howard.(IOSH, HND Mineral Processing and Material Reclamation)