Greening the Restaurant Industry: Deep Fat Fryers + Free Market Capitalism = Clogged Toilets

Somewhere Adam Smith is having a hard time finding a working toilet and he doesn't know why.

Could it be fryer grease from the restaurants in free market heaven is clogging the sewers?

If you can believe anything you read in the news, that seems to be the case in heavenly Richmond, BC. Here's the headline:

Restaurant grease buildup costly to Richmond

How costly?

The City of Richmond has been handed a $480,000 repair bill — one of the biggest to be borne in Metro Vancouver — this week to fix a sewer main that ruptured after being clogged with grease.

and later on

Metro Vancouver — along with local municipalities — already spends up $2 million each year to clean up clogged and backed-up sewer pipes.

and lastly

It's estimated it will cost Metro Vancouver $1 million per kilometre to rehabilitate this sewer, and it will take 10 to 12 years to complete the work.

Paragraph two makes it clear:

The city suspects restaurants were responsible for the grease buildup

Wow! Richmond, a true rising star in BC's food culture, is destroying the civic infrastructure with old grease.

While the economic (let alone the ecological) toll of broken sewers is all kinds of fun to think about, even more fun is reflecting on the broken broke-ass broken-ness of our economy. What is it about free market capitalism as practised in British Columbia that some entrepreneur, multi-national fuel conglomerate or government agency isn't collecting all this grease (before it hits the sewers) and turning it into a magical liquid that can fuel engines?

What's crazier still is that converting fryer grease into bio-diesel is not a new science. "The history of bio-diesel began in 1880..."

Here's where a little centralisation can come in handy.

Let's take all the above costs and, simply for the sake of argument, call that number (ha!) One Million Dollars. Sure, the total costs will probably run somewhere in the tens to hundreds of millions, as initial estimates for large scale projects sometimes don't reflect reality--but for now, let's pretend a million bucks appeared like Manna from heaven, ear marked for a bio-diesel project, despite the anti-incentives like ending tax-exemption for bio-diesel in 2009.

With $1,000,000 could "we"

1. Train restaurant employees to collect fryer grease, an not pour it down the drain?

(This is perhaps the largest hurdle facing bio-diesel production from fryer grease)

2. Collect the bio fryer grease/transport to refinery?

3. Refine this grease and use it to run vehicles?

4. Donate surplus bio-diesel, as the ultimate profit is realised by the reduced stress the grease places on the sewer system--an ultimately unknown number that is larger than any of us realise.

It's like traditional Chinese medicine--you pay the doctor to keep you well, to maintain the body--the doctor doesn't get paid when you're sick.

"We" should be paying to keep the sewers free of fryer grease to avoid the much more costly repairs. When grease is kept out of the sewers, it can be refined, re-used and monitized. When it is thrown down the sewer, it becomes a gigantic tax-suck and eco-disaster.

Back to market centralisation, could the restaurants in the Okanagan collect their own fryer-grease and some how monitize it for the benefit of the restaurants in the Okanagan? Wouldn't that be a fun emoticon-insignia to put on your menu? How long before everyone wants a "We belong to the Okanagan Fry Grease Refinery Society because that's just how hip and evolved the restaurant culture is in the Okanagan" emoticon next to their deep fried offerings! Can stickers for the window be far behind?

Even if all that theoretical Okanagan bio-diesel was given away, don't you think it could be a wildly huge marketing coup for the region and its restaurants?

I wonder if the new prison will make bio diesel from their fryer grease?

Congress in Session

Canadian Chefs' Congress 2010: Oceans for Tomorow.

Canadian Chefs' Congress 2010: Oceans for Tomorow.

Canadian Chefs' Congress 2010: Oceans for Tomorow.

Canadian Chefs' Congress 2010: Oceans for Tomorow.

Canadian Chefs' Congress 2010: Oceans for Tomorow.

To the Chefs attending from the Okanagan, knowing that you have a long sustainable bike ride ahead of you, here's some fun things to think about as you pedal your way along on HWY 3.

And you should take your bicycle, partially because it is a glorious drive and also, really now, if it wasn't the year of the oil spill, it was the year of spraying the even more disgusting oil dispersant (presently enjoying a good cherning thanks to Hurricane Earl.)

In that fun spirit, lets start here



Now you've probably all seen that by now, but why not watch it again?

And while you're there, why not watch the "critique" (and then ask yourself with whom would you rather dine?)



So first the premise (and some soft, sensible acoustic guitar strumming with a catchy beat)
The Canadian Chefs’ Congress 2010 on Vancouver Island will focus on chefs and their relationship to the ocean and its current fragile state. We will look at sustainable practices as well as the impact of our actions of today on the oceans of tomorrow.

Of course the first question that arises is "exactly what are you trying to sustain?" But before we get into that, let's watch this--a fun little movie based on Alan Weisman's remarkable book The World Without Us.



Based on this delightful little video, what say "we" all call for a 500 year moratorium on all oceanic commerce? No more oil rigs, no more nuclear submarines spraying sonar shattering the minds of aquatic mammals, no more gigantic fishing ships crusing the oceans. Hands up...anyone? Because if "we're" trying to sustain the health of our oceans, we simply need to stop going in the oceans to do the anti-life death kulture shenanigans that Humans (who live on land) like to perp in places that aren't their own. Simply leave the oceans alone.

A nice long "time out." We can tighten up our local beef/pork/lamb/goat meat and dairy reality in the meantime.

If , on the other hand, "we" are trying to maintain old paradigms in the face of even older challenges growing more and more unmanagable with each passing convulsion of late capitalism then I imagine that is another dicussion that's all together different than one surrounding the far simpler question "how do we do right by the ocean?"

Sometimes I think the fish thing has gotten a little out of hand. Who would benefit from a moratorium on all large scale ocean commerce? Probably the people living 100 miles away from the Ocean.

100...miles...away...from...the...ocean. A diet based on that which is within one hundred miles of your home? Hold on...I think we have something here!

Now don't get me wrong. When I'm within 100 miles of the Ocean I love me some sea food. I become one of those squids that moves through the fish eating for pleasure.

When I'm in the Okanagan, I'm not so much caring about the sea food. In fact, I feel sadness and disconnect when I see Halibut on any menu in the southern interior of BC. (Don't worry, I feel sadder and disconnecteder when I see it on a menu in Minneapolis MN.)

I thought it was neat that there was an abundance of Salmon this year. I do love me some salmon, and now that I've had some local salmon, I'm going to want some year after year...our lakes and waterways are amenable to large salmon runs, right? Certainly we want to keep those clean and functional and free from incinerator debris or nuclear waste or things like that. I'm not saying there should be no fish...I'm just saying it needs to be local, and needs to be harvested responsibly, and all the rest.

The Okanagan has as vibrant and diverse a food shed as any place in Canada without Oceanic fish. The Okanagan needs to exploit that more efficiently (in the form of a functional livestock slaughter reality in the south of the valley...maybe a dairy too). Why not build a regional cuisine upon that which is actually local, and in so doing, actually support the local producers and actually invest in the surrounding land? Save the fish for trips to Van.

Questions? Comments?

Greening the Restaurant Industry: Water

The food thing was a little uneven on this trip to Vancouver.


There were high hopes and lots of good intentions--Lord knows those rarely amount to anything, and this trip proved no exception.

We drove out to Koon Bo based on a post in Chow Times. We got there at 9pm. It was packed, and the food on the tables looked great.

"I'm sorry we're not open"

"Huh?"

It was 9pm, the restaurant closed at 10.

"We can't serve you. Our chef went home early tonight."

Great.

The next failure was self-generated. It was a choice between arriving 2 hours early to see the Schlippenbach trio at the jazz festival, or going to Phnom Penh Restaurant and risk being one second late for the show--a risk I wasn't ready to take. So a salad bar in Yale Town it was. They did have a nice cheese spread back stage, though.

That said, there were some food joys. It would appear that they've upped the ante with shwarma and falafel on The Drive. Taste of Paradise at 1399 Commercial Drive, in what was well past the 11th hour, came through with attention, value and friendliness as well as an immaculately prepared meal.

The best meal of the entire trip? The water fountain at the lodge in Manning Park. Oh that Manning Park water is good. Every time we drive through, we fill bottles.

I love me some fancy water. I'm more of a bubbly water enthusiast, but there really is nothing like a good, still water. Water in the Okanagan is hard, and occasionally (depending upon where you live) needs boiling in order to be consumed safely. We all know that this will soon be the rule, rather than the exception, and so when there are those boil water advisories, or a thick layer of mineral build up inside the tea kettle, or a faint bleach smell, we don't really put up too much of a fuss. Yet when set against water from Manning Park, you can't help but pause and meditate upon water's fundamental role in life, let alone cooking.

Speaking of water, what about grey water? You all know what grey water is right? In my "short-sleeved" capacity within the food economy, I spend a little more time working the hose (so to speak) than many of my "long-sleeved" colleagues. It's nothing less than shocking to think of all the water a restaurant uses in a day. And by "use" I mean send down the drain to where ever water goes when it is sent down a drain.

Certainly there's the technology to get more utility from the water used to, say, cool a Cambro filled with hot soup (or warm a frozen pork shoulder, or wash off the dishes before the dishes go into the machine that washes the dishes). Can't that all be diverted through some filters and into a tank?

From there, that water could be used for all kinds of things. I'm thinking irrigation, primarily, if not for our beloved grapes, than for other "cruder" plants and non agricultural landscapes, like those surrounding the restaurants where we work.

Speaking of the restaurants where we work, most of them have enough square footage on their roofs that collecting the rain water makes sense as well. Where as "grey water" is (for now) disqualified for consumption, people, plants and animals all over the world depend entirely on rain water. While the thought of drinking water that came from the sky rather than a plastic pipe might make the more genteel customer shudder in revulsion, plants of all kinds seem to do just fine with it.

If you think the war(s) over oil have been gruesome, the coming war(s) over water promise to be infinitely more so. And if you think the propane bill is a doozy, just wait until water is totally commodified to the same extent.

And on that happy note, stay tuned for the next instalment of Greening The Restaurant Industry here on Okanagan Daily Special!