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Suburban Group Educates People On Recycling Cooking Oil

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Fifty percent of cooking oil that goes down the drain happens Thanksgiving week, according to The United States Environmental Protection Agency, even though you're not supposed to put cooking oil down the drain because it clogs sewers.

So, if you're frying a turkey for Thanksgiving, a suburban group said don't dump that cooking oil, "re-fuel" it.

Kay McKeen is Executive Director of SCARCE in Glen Ellyn which, four years ago, launched the "cooking oil rescue project" and promotes the recycling of cooking oil into things like bio-diesel fuel. WBBM's Terry Keshner reports.

"We're really excited to educate people about saving their cooking oil, saving their money and helping the environment," McKeen said. "You kind of use it twice, you use it to fry your food and then use it to fry your plane or something."

Residents of Batavia are among those, who will be encouraged Saturday to recycle their cooking oil.

McKeen told WBBM they are often very busy on weekends.

"On one of these Saturdays we'll get 12,000 pounds of cooking oil," she said. "Which is a great resource to use but also means it didn't go down the drain."

SCARCE has seven locations throughout the area.

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