Thanksgiving Insert on Grease

Frequently Asked Questions

Fat Free Sewers

Sanitary Sewer Overflows Graph

Sanitary Sewer System Overflows

Grease Clogged Wastewater Line Video

Overflowing Manhole

TCEQ Grease Poster - Let's Tackle the Grease in this Kitchen (also in spanish on page 2)

Last year, the City of Austin Water Utility responded to over 54 grease-related sewer backups. At a cost of $712.00 to make each repair, that cost the City of Austin about $38,000 to make repairs to sewer lines caused by improperly disposed of grease.

Don't pour grease down the sink. Instead, you should cool it, contain it and throw it in the trash.

Running hot water along with the fats, oil and grease doesn’t help!
No amount of hot water keeps grease from eventually congealing. This only gets the grease through the part of the pipes in your home. Once it goes into the sewer and cools, it sticks to the walls of the pipes and creates an expensive and messy problem of sewer backups - for you, for your neighbors and for the creeks and rivers in your neighborhood.

Grease can completely block sewer pipe, as shown above.
Picture provided by the Bureau of Environmental Services, Portland, Oregon

In the case of a sanitary sewer overflow, call our dispatch number, 972-1000 to report the overflow.

• Reduce, reuse, and recycle. Put used fat, oil and grease in a foiled lined bag, such as a foiled coffee bag or a used soup or vegetable can. If you generate large amounts of used cooking oil such as used when frying turkeys, reuse or recycle it.

• Scrape food scraps from dishes into trash cans or garbage bags

• Avoid using your garbage disposal

• Remove oil and grease from dishes, pans, fryers and griddles. Cool first before you skim, scrape or wipe off excess grease and put it into the trash.

• Never pour fat, oils and grease down a drain. Help us help you.