The True Costs of Grease Trap Maintenance True Costs of Grease Trap Maintenance Spending the bare minimum will ultimately hurt your ROI I f you are a facility manager working in an

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The True Costs of Grease Trap MaintenanceSpending the bare minimum will ultimately hurt your ROI

I f you are a facility manager working in an organization that only spends the bare minimum to get by and keep the place run-ning, then you’ll probably want to skip to the next article.If, however, your organization is constantly driving improvement,

which looks at total cost of ownership and seeks to positively impact the communities where they operate, then this is for you.

Facility managers have many priorities that require their daily attention, and grease management can be overlooked. Focusing on improving the customer experience, controlling costs and ensuring above all else that the facility continues to operate efficiently without unnecessary shut-downs is the norm.

Although waste grease management and choosing the right grease control device seem to be somewhat insignificant given the above priorities, facility managers’ goals are all impacted by choices regarding grease control. Facility managers are increasingly being held accountable for grease effluent control and regulatory compliance. Lack of compliance can mean costly fines, facility shut downs and, more importantly, damage to the corporate brand and reputation.

This article explores the wide-reaching implications of daily deci-sions about grease control devices and sheds light on how the right approach to grease management can enhance the restaurant brand and drive true business sustainability.

A Daily ChallengeFacility managers face daily challenges to achieve and maintain wastewater grease control regulatory compliance. Questions regarding compliance can distract the owner or facility manager from optimizing the client experience and, at worst, can become nightmares.

Complicating this is the corporate pressure to strengthen the restaurant’s brand, enhance the customer experience, manage costs and deliver profit goals. Doing what is best can take a back seat to doing what is necessary at any given time. The facility manager is often caught in the middle of corporate financial management, engineering design and construction teams,

regulatory and stewardship teams, purchasing, human resources, restaurant management, operations and outside regulatory agencies.

In the case of grease control, some organizations have driven the process to the lowest common denominator to buy what is cheapest to keep them in compliance. More visionary companies have taken a longer-term approach to satisfy the brand manager’s initiatives, while becoming good stewards of the community, the environment and the bottom line.

Staying CompliantPlumbing and building codes simply require an approved grease capture device to be installed. But just because a device is in compliance with the local code does not mean that the facility is in environmental compliance for wastewater discharge or can operate trouble-free.

Regulators and grease inspectors manage sewer use with environ-mental ordinances. They are becoming very aggressive in monitoring grease effluent and enforcing grease control standards. A food service establishment must operate in a way that does not disrupt the safe operation of the sewer system and the treatment plant.

Grease Trap Maintenance

By Silvano Ferrazzo

Remodeling/Construction

The Official Magazine of the Restaurant Facility Management Association 37August/September 2011

Grease Trap Maintenance Remodeling/Construction

Many inspectors have seen grease traps and concrete interceptors fail due to corrosion or poor construction. In an effort to achieve their goals of eliminating sanitary sewer overflows and treatment plant disruptions, they look to the food service establishment to effectively control grease at the source.

The Cheap RouteA food service establishment can achieve plumbing code compliance by simply pur-chasing a cheap grease trap or concrete interceptor. Both have been widely used for the past 50 to 70 years, but neither effectively addresses discharge compli-ance now required by the Clean Water Act. So, are they really cheaper? And do they work?

Metal grease traps, also called hydromechanical grease interceptors, require daily or weekly cleaning and only remove 90 percent of the incoming grease. They often tie up kitchen staff with the unpleasant job of cleaning out the smelly, sticky and greasy waste. Worse, metal rusts, and that means costly replacement and disruption to the facility. When metal grease traps fail to properly capture and hold waste, they are out of environmental compliance, regulators impose fines and shutdown can result. Damage to the restaurant brand is hard to overcome.

Concrete interceptors can last longer, and only require monthly or quarterly pumping, but they also can corrode and fail in as little as six to 12 years. The porous concrete walls can accelerate the build-up of grease and bacteria, with its objection-able odors and hazardous hydrogen sulfide gases. As the concrete corrodes, the greasy waste can pass through and result in a visit from the regulator to impose fines,

Meeting plumbing codes does not mean that the restaurant is in environmental compliance.

When sizing grease interceptors to ensure compliance, work with your supplier and

local regulator who can verify the grease interceptor is sized to accept

the peak flow from each grease-discharging fixture.


/‘Garden Center Mulch’

Grease Trap MaintenanceRemodeling/Construction

implement corrective action or deliver a shut-down order. The use of costly corrosion resistant coatings can slow the deterioration down, but eventually the concrete fails and the cheap concrete interceptor then needs to be replaced, disrupting the restaurant operation and damaging the all-important customer experience. It’s really not cheap anymore.

The good news is that new grease control systems can deliver trouble-free environmental compliance, improve your ROI and be sustainable over the life of the facility.

Choosing the Right DeviceNewer technology in the form of automatic grease removal devices promises the elimination of daily or weekly cleaning and can deliver very good grease removal. That’s because the greasy waste is skimmed off the interior surface of the tank and collected in a separate con-tainer on the side of the unit. That container is then removed and

replaced when full.These units are much more expensive than metal grease traps,

often approaching or surpassing the price of much larger gravity grease interceptors, due to the mechanical and electrical complexity and materials of construction.

The main issue with these devices is that the skimmers, heating elements and waste take-offs have to be inspected and maintained daily or weekly. The additional complexity of heating elements inside the tank and electronic controllers has to be ad-dressed by kitchen staff, who are often too busy or not trained to deal with the added device complexity. Should kitchen staff be trained to maintain skimmers, heaters, calibrate controls and timers and carry out the required inspections of the device? If the facility has one of these devices installed, kitchen staff will be held responsible to maintain it in order to keep effluent dis-charge compliance.

Business sustainability means doing what is right for the long-term success of the

business and the environment.

PROPER INSTALLATION IS CRITICAL


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The light at the end of the tunnel appears to be the new engineered gravity grease interceptor. These engineered systems have been developed to address the failings of grease traps and concrete interceptors. They are designed to optimize gravity separation by managing incoming and outgoing flow within the vessel and utilizing construction materials that stop corrosion in its tracks. Although initially more expensive than their concrete predecessors, they present the best total cost of ownership and return on investment over the life of the facility.

Some incorporate distributed flow dynamics to deliver ideal separation efficiency. Many use fiberglass polymer composites or steel with proprietary coatings that are corrosion proof when exposed to kitchen grease waste.

New construction materials are often much lighter than concrete and can offer superior installation flexibility. These larger engineered gravity grease interceptors can now be installed in kitchen floors, in building basements, in parking garages, above ground and in traditional outside burial. They can even be equipped with remote suction options

and monitoring systems to simplify the role of restaurant staff.

Finally, many of these systems are backed by industry-leading extended war-ranties, as long as 30 years, which means once installed, replacement will no longer be necessary. Business sustainability can now be achieved.

Less Maintenance, Lower Total Cost of OwnershipDoes your kitchen staff have the time or training to maintain a grease trap or cor-roding concrete grease interceptor? Even the best grease interceptor in the world needs to be maintained in order to deliver compliant effluent quality, so it is best to choose the device that requires minimal maintenance.

Since metal grease traps can hold a very limited amount of grease, they require daily or weekly cleaning and removal of collected greasy waste. A 35-GPM grease trap can only hold 70 pounds of grease, or around 9 gallons. Without maintenance, the grease trap capacity is overwhelmed, and back-ups can occur into the kitchen, resulting in disruption of the facility, in-

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Corroded Concrete

The Official Magazine of the Restaurant Facility Management Association 41August/September 2011

Grease Trap Maintenance Remodeling/Construction

trusive smells, health code violations, grease permit violations or fines and a damaged customer experience.

Both grease traps and automatic grease removal devices often require solids filters to capture food sediment. They have to be re-moved, cleaned and re-installed daily in order to prevent clogging and sink back-ups. Both are also prone to inadvertent sabotage. Kitchen staff could easily remove the flow control orifice plate, which often clogs, or unplug the heater or controller and cause excess wastewater discharge, escalating liability.

Automatic grease removal devices eliminate the need for constant cleaning since they collect the greasy waste into a separate container, but they require continuous maintenance just the same. The heat-ing elements, skimmers and electronic controls must be maintained daily and weekly to ensure uninterrupted operation. Failure to do so can lead to breakdown of skimming systems and failure to contain the greasy waste. If the kitchen staff is up to the task of maintaining these devices, they can present an alternative for grease control where space is extremely limited and where new engineered interceptors just will not fit. But the questions remain: Is grease trap maintenance the

best utilization of kitchen staff? Is it even safe for kitchen staff to perform those functions?

Concrete interceptors require less maintenance than grease traps due to the increased grease-holding capacity. A typical 1,000-gallon concrete vault can easily hold close to 2,000 pounds of grease (250 gallons), so pumping can usually be done monthly or quarterly.

But concrete’s porous inner walls can harbor bacteria and acceler-ate sticky grease build-up. This means proper cleaning often requires scraping and pressure washing of interior tank walls and floors to remove the build-up. As a last resort, disinfection may be required to remove some of the objectionable smell generated by the bacteria and greasy waste.

Because engineered gravity grease interceptor systems more efficiently capture and hold waste grease and sediment, they can often hold even larger quantities of grease, without compromising performance, before needing to be pumped out. A new-generation 1,000-gallon system can capture and store around 4,000 pounds of grease, which is around 500 gallons. Because of the higher efficiency, these systems can be downsized, allowing them to fit in tighter spaces


than conventional concrete interceptors.Cleaning also becomes easier and faster since the interior

surfaces are smooth, rather than porous or pitted like concrete. Costly scraping, pressure washing and disinfection are essential-ly eliminated, as are many of the objectionable odors. And cor-rosion is eliminated once and for all. By eliminating the need to replace failed or corroded systems, engineered interceptors are the new green alternative, since they represent true business sustainability.

Only one purchase for life of the facility for true equipment sustainabilityNo kitchen or parking lot tear up to replace failed system for material sustainabilityReplacement purchase, removal and installation cost are eliminated for ROI sustainabilityEquipment energy to deliver and install replacement system is saved for energy sustainabilityMinimal involvement of kitchen staff for environmental compliance

No disruption to the customer experienceProtection of the restaurant brand

The Corporate DecisionEach corporation faces the decision to do what seems cheap versus what is right. If the corporation is focused primarily on lowering initial costs, they will often buy the cheap metal trap or concrete interceptor and hope that local regulators will not notice when there is slippage in compliance.

If, on the other hand, the corporation is driving toward lower to-tal cost of ownership, preventing fines and non-compliance, environ-mental stewardship, brand enhancement, and improving the employee and customer experience, the better choice is to look toward the more cost-effective engineered systems.

Silvano Ferrazzo is the Business Development Manager with Green Turtle Americas Ltd., an innovator and provider of wastewater source pollution technology for commercial, institutional and indus-trial applications.


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The True Costs of Grease Trap Maintenance True Costs of Grease Trap Maintenance Spending the bare minimum will ultimately hurt your ROI I f you are a facility manager working in an