Tip Water

[David Hogan]

Reduce the F.O.G. – Fats –Oils – Grease - Grease or cooking oil from your kitchen can stick inside sewer pipes and over time can clog your pipes and sewer line.
* Cool and let fat, oil and grease harden in a used soup or vegetable can then place in a sealed plastic bag and toss in the trash. If you have a large amount, recycle it at the City of Austin Household Hazardous Waste facility.
* Wipe small amounts of grease from pans with a paper towel and throw it in the trash.
* Scrape food scraps from dishes into trash cans or garbage bags. Put vegetable scraps into the compost.
* Avoid pouring grease in your garbage disposal.
* Running hot water along with the fats, oil, and grease doesn’t help! This only gets the grease to flow through the pipes in your home. Once it goes into the sewer and cools, it sticks to the walls of the pipes and creates an expensive and messy problem of sewer backups – for you, for your neighbors, and for the creeks and rivers in your neighborhood.
* Did you know that after being used in your home or business, water requires extensive treatment before it is returned to the environment? That is why the wastewater charges are typically higher than for water used. Your wastewater quantity is not directly measured but rather is taken as the average of the two lowest bills received between mid-November and mid-March, when you aren’t using much water outside. So, to keep your waste water bills low year round, be particularly conscientious of water usage during this period.