Tuesday, 29 December 2015 - 14:35
Dutch use 5 million liters of oil to make New Year’s donuts
Every year over December Dutch people use 5 million liters of oil to make millions of their New Year's snacks oliebollen - tennis ball-sized lumps of fried dough smothered in powdered sugar. Reest and Wieden and other water boards are concerned about how much of that oil end up in the drains.
According to the water board, grease down the drain not only wastes money, but also causes blockages and is very bad for the environment. It costs municipalities and water boards a lot of money to clean up blockages. Blockages can also lead to failures in the waste water treatment plants.
All this is easily avoidable as used cooking oil can be recycled. The 5 million liters of cooking oil used every year can yield 3 million liters of biodiesel, which is sufficient to travel a distance of 45 million kilometers.
There are about 3 thousand collection points for used cooking oil at supermarkets and municipalities around the country. The nearest collection point to you can be found on this website.