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Addressing Municipal Regulations
An increasing number of sewer authorities are beginning to monitor what commercial kitchens are discharging in the wastewater system. The EPA is requiring most townships to report SSO’s (Sanitized Sewer Overflows) and fining them per incident. An SSO occurs when there is a clogged municipal sewer drain line which generally forces gray (kitchen) and black (bathroom) water out of the closest manhole. Spills may contaminate streams, or flow into storm drains. Bad or unaddressed SSO’s will generate heavy fines and consent decrees from the EPA. Like kitchen drain lines, municipal drain lines become occluded with grease from the combination of nearby restaurants. Townships are saddled with the cost to clear their drain lines, but recently, have surcharged those restaurants using the drain line to offset cost. Many townships are now proactively monitoring each restaurant using lab tests performed on waste water from the outbound of the facility’s grease trap.
Sewer Authorities are testing for three things:
BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand): The amount of oxygen present per unit of wastewater.
TSS (Total Suspended Solids): The amount of food solids present per unit of wastewater.
FOG (Fats, Oil and Grease): The amount of grease present per unit of waste water.
Each township has set their local limits for BOD, TSS and FOG.
EARTH BIO TECHNOLOGIES will address all municipal regulations using a combination of a restaurant survey, grease trap pumping and scheduling the third party lab tests, which is critical to gathering accurate readings.
Reviewing Construction Plans for Grease Trap Sizing and Location
As restaurant buildings go up faster and faster often the placement of a grease traps is done by default. The next time you are at a fast food restaurant drive through look down, most likely there’s a grease trap right under your car. Placing a trap in the middle of the drive through lane is sub ideal on many levels. When it needs to be pumped, your drive through must be closed, and if it ever backs up, you will have a slick layer or grease where most of your car traffic is. A brief review of construction plans before shovel hits dirt can save you and your restaurant liabilities, down time and money. Grease Interceptors (which are mainly found in urban settings where space is limited) are metal boxes found under the kitchens triple sink. They are designed to slow the flow of water with the use of a ‘flow control’ and a series of baffles. The longer water has retention time in the interceptor, the better it separates grease and solids from water.
The Plumbing Drainage Institute (PDI) has a formula that sizes the grease interceptors based on the size of each bay of the triple sink. Often times grease interceptors are undersized due to lack of space. Retro fitting an interceptor in a tight kitchen can prove impossible or exceedingly expensive. Again, a quick review of plumbing plans can get you the correct size interceptor as well as a location for it off of the triple sink.
Pumping of Grease Traps and Lift Stations
No matter what you do to pre-treat a grease trap or lift station, IT WILL HAVE TO GET PUMPED EVENTUALLY. At every visit your EB Technician will look at the grease trap for your facility. Using a ‘Dip-Stick’ (which is used to take a core sample of the trap) we will be able to give you and accurate reading of what your grease trap looks like and how soon it needs to be pumped. Once your trap becomes 20% full of either grease and or solids it is NOT SEPERATING grease from water as it was designed. If you continue to operate past the 20% mark the outbound drain line will begin to show significant signs of grease, and will eventually lead to a clog. When the outbound of a grease trap blocks, that manhole that covers your trap will be where grease laden and foul smelling water will come from. That generates the question: Is that grease trap where your customers can see it or smell it?
If you don’t schedule regular cleanings of your grease interceptor it could look like this:
The customer whose grease interceptor this was thought that he does not have to clean it that much because he does ‘very little cooking with grease”. As you can see, grease interceptors can get very full even if you don’t think you are cooking with large amounts of grease.
Do this experiment:
1. Pan sear a boneless skinless chicken breast using the normal amount of oil.
2. After chicken is finished cooking pour water in the pan and place it back on the burner for 3 to 5 minutes. Then remove.
3. Put a few ice cubes in the pan with water and let sit over night in the refrigerator.
4. Look at the pan in the morning. You should see about 4 to 8 ounces of grease from cooking that lean cut of poultry.
5. Now imagine what cooking a steak can do.
No matter what you do, grease is entering your drain line, from poultry, fish, meat and vegetables. There are some simple ‘Best Management Practices’ that can reduce those amounts. Educating your staff on these BMP’S will save you short and long term plumbing expenses.
 Lift Stations or Pump Stations are designed to take water from a sub sewer location and pump it to a height where the water can be fed into the municipalities gravity fed sewer lines. Lift stations work off the premise of a float valves. A predetermined water level is set, and when the water and floats reach that height the pumps turn on. Pumps located at the bottom of the lift will then pump out the water until the water level and floats return to their resting position.
Strainers for Sinks, Floor Drains and Floor Sinks
Commercial kitchens are dynamic places. The speed in which things are done is fast paced enough that sometimes corners are cut. At the end of the shift there is always a mad dash to clean up and prepare for the next day. EB Tech has found that often times when there are handfuls of food debris in the sink, the strainers get removed so that the sink can drain, debris and all. Floor drains run into the same problem. If there is standing water over a floor drain, staff will remove the strainer and let all that can drain into it. If a floor drain is missing, it acts as an open porthole for a lemon kicked across the floor, or any other object.
Strainers are designed to stop large food or other debris from entering the drain line system. Reducing the amount of debris will extend the time between cleaning the grease traps and interceptors. It will also reduce potential clogs in the drain line system. To combat the removal of strainers EB Tech has locks to secure all strainers. It will force your kitchen staff to remove the solids and dispose of them in the trash, rather then allowing them to go down the drain.
ServSafe® Certifications
It is required in the City of Philadelphia to have one employee certified at all times. Wayne Timm has been a ServSafe Instructor for over 14 years.
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