Green Options » Theft

Theft of Grease for Biodiesel on the Rise: CA Adjusts Laws

Nick Chambers — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:41:33 +0000

By cutting fees for the legal transportation of kitchen grease used to make biodiesel for personal use from $400 to $75 per truck, California hopes that would-be backyard biodiesel grease thieves will pony up and go legit.

Prices for regular diesel have been historically high nationwide, and all over the U.S. people are turning to backyard biodiesel as a way to make cheap fuel — a fairly straightforward process that can be accomplished for less than $1/gal.

One of the most copious sources of inedible oil to make biodiesel is the nasty, used fryer grease leftover from commercial kitchens — and what cheaper way to obtain it than stealing?

Voyage to the Center of the United States: Love, Theft and Theory

Caroline Savery — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:33:06 +0000

Dearest Sustainablog!

Thank you for welcoming me back after an extended hiatus travelling our great American countryside. Burned out from the stresses of the Sust Enable project, my partner Scott and I took off for the great wilds of U.S. National Parks in early August. I haven’t written a blog since, as my adventures swept me far from the reaches of the Internet, for the most part. Now I am back in Pittsburgh, not living sustainably, yet still reeling from the life lessons reaped from the past four months.

I anticipated having a slew of breathtaking photographs to offer you, alongside commentary from the trip in which I reflected on our often-severed connection with nature, and the deep wisdom such a connection provides. Instead, one night while we camped in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, our video and digital camera were stolen from the glovebox of Scott’s car. In the middle of a peaceful campsite, in which the sense of goodwill invoked a dozen campers to leave their car doors unlocked that night, a band of thiefs took advantage, slipped in after dark, and robbed a handful of people… not only of material possessions, but of their precious trip memories.

I wept inconsolably when I learned that the camera which held our trip photographs had been taken from us. I cared little for the money-cost of these items, but I couldn’t stop hurting from the void that the thief left in me–having robbed me of the potential for life-long memories.

Memories surely live on in one’s mind… but as an avid student of the sciences, psychology easily reminds me that minds distort experiences. I was hoping to use the photographs from our trip as a guideline for revisiting the feelings and sights that this wonderful trip stirred in me. That hope is gone now, exchanged for a fleeting handful of cash to another.

And so, in the middle of my meditations on how the entire human race might be unified if we each and all had the opportunity to pause in the arms of nature’s bounty… I was sharply reminded with a single malicious act… that we have much further to go before then.

Biodiesel Boom Spurs Theft of Nasty, Used Fry-O-Lator Grease

Nick Chambers — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:49:34 +0000

Rotting, leftover fryer grease has turned into gold in the race to our energy future — and thieves have taken notice.

It’s early in the pre-dawn dark hours of the morning. A group of Northern California pseudohippies just finished a game of Zonk — or rather, the game just stopped because somebody quoted a line from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and everybody forgot what they were doing.

Yet, by a stroke of luck, the conversation about Harold and Kumar reminds the group of their real reason for staying up so late. They pack into a truck and head down to the local fast food joint looking to load up — but it’s not the food they’re loading up on, it’s the nasty, half-rotted, leftover fryer grease.