The Christmas holidays are approaching and with them the traditional Christmas Eve menu. In addition to potato salad, it must include fried carp or schnitzels, which require a considerable amount of oil. Disposing of it properly can prevent clogging and avoid unexpected expenses. 4 out of 5 Prague residents are aware of this, but only a third of them practice proper recycling. This is according to a survey for Prague Waterworks and Sewerage.
More than half of the Prague residents surveyed dispose of used oil in one of the wrong ways. It ends up in the kitchen sink in 20% of households, while 14% pour it down the toilet. Another 16% pour it into a resealable PET bottle, but throw it in the mixed waste. However, the correct way to dispose of this container is to place it in a container for recycling edible fats and oils or take it to a collection yard.
The second way of proper disposal is not entirely practical, as confirmed by previous attempts to do so in different parts of Prague. Apart from the distance of the individual yards, the main complaint of Prague residents was the limited opening hours. Special containers are supposed to be the solution, which 83% of Prague residents identified as the ideal recycling method. But why are only a third (33%) of them using them?
Smaller black containers, most often with orange lids, have been placed on the streets of Prague in recent years to make it easier to recycle oils. Unfortunately, there are not enough of them on the streets. According to the data available on the websites of the individual municipalities, there are on average around 20 containers per municipality, but in Prague 1, for example, there are only six, while Prague 10 boasts 42 containers.
The low availability is also confirmed by survey data. Only 33% of respondents confirmed that there is an oil recycling container near their home. On the other hand, 51% said they do not have this option and 16% are not sure.
Unfortunately, the dumping of used oil into the waste is still very common in Prague. Households practicing this method of disposal are setting themselves up for considerable problems that can take a toll on their already strained wallets. The fat in the waste solidifies, trapping various impurities and gradually clogging the waste pipes. “Often people still have cast iron pipes, which clog quite easily and lead to flooding of the apartment,” says Anatoliy Pryyma, a plumber from Prima Servis. At the same time, he confirms that repairs are often challenging, even financially. “The average price for dealing with a clogged drain is in the units of thousands. For more complex repairs, it can exceed ten thousand crowns,” adds Pryyma.
The data collection was carried out on a sample of 1,000 Prague residents during November 2022 through the Instant Research application of the Ipsos agency.
Did you know: 18 kg of edible fat per capita is consumed in Prague annually? That’s a total of more than 23.5 million kg of fat in Prague. One third of this amount ends up in the sewage pipes, according to research.
Source: CTK
