Making It Clear How FOG Clogs Your Pipes and Costs You Money

This is a bit of a sticky topic, because recycling fats, oils and grease (we call these “FOG” for short) takes a bit more work than food scraps for you to dispose of properly.

It is important, though, because one of the greatest threats to the smooth flowing of wastewater from Castro Valley homes and businesses to the treatment plant is the FOG we put down our drains.

Unlike other food waste, FOG sticks to pipes and to itself. Just as cholesterol builds up in our arteries if we don’t watch what we eat, FOG builds up in our sewer pipes, reducing their ability to carry waste away from our homes, and increasing the maintenance needs to do each year to clear FOG out of the pipes. 

To give you an idea as to the size of that job, CVSan maintains nearly 160 miles of wastewater sewer mains and nine wastewater pump stations, which take up to 4 million gallons of wastewater to the in San Lorenzo each day. That equals the volume 800 tanker trucks could transport daily!

Keeping your pipes clear saves you money down the road.

A friend of mine paid over $1,000 last year to replace the pipes leading away from his kitchen sink. The culprit: FOG! It had not just clogged the pipes again and again, but over time had corroded them to the point where they were unfixable and had to be replaced. Treating his pipes better would have extended their life and put off that big repair bill.

The same can be said for your sewer lateral. The better you treat it by keeping FOG out of it, the longer you can extend its life, delaying an upgrade which can cost upwards of $5,000 — although CVSan’s Sewer Lateral Replacement Grants can help defray that cost.

Compounding the benefits of recycling FOG, it is great for composting, so disposing of it through the green Organics bin doubles the benefit of keeping it out of your sink drains! And it helps to keep your sewer service fee low: Castro Valley still has one of the lowest such fees in Alamada County. 

We have free FOG collection canisters for you.

To increase the rate at which we all capture and recycle FOG, CVSan is ramping up its distribution of free FOG collection canisters that you can keep by the kitchen sink to more easily collect FOG.

A few weeks ago, we set up tables at the and at to hand out the canisters and have residents sign a pledge to dispose of FOG through the organics bins, keeping it out of the sewers. We handed out close to 100 cans, so people are definitely willing to participate.

CVSan benefits, too, because we don’t have to budget as many resources (people and trucks) to keeping the main sewer lines clear.

As a district, we have been replacing community sewer lines steadily over the past few years, and every one we replace could have lasted longer had we all put less FOG down our drains!

Join us in our campaign to keep fats, oils and grease out of our pipes!

To get a free canister, stop by the at 21040 Marshall St. in Castro Valley, just off Castro Valley Boulevard, next to RiteAid.

For more information, check out our website at www.cvsan.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.