Have a look what Wikipedia says about soap.
Not as simple as one might think.
Please don’t chuck that oil down the drain though. As some have already said the simplest procedure would be to pour it into suitable containers and add it to the trash - which is what I always used to do, kept the original bottles for just that.
I wish I’d known then about running diesel engines on it though, as I had just such a car.
I hardly use any oil these days and there is never any to dispose of.
I think liquid drain cleaner is concentrated chlorine bleach. I would NOT leave that in a sealed container in a closet. Out in the garage or on a back step (as long as there are no kids around) would be a better choice.
Do not let this Mister Wizard concoction come into contact with any acid.
~VOW
Killjoy. OK, it’s out in the driveway on top of my workbench. No kids around. 
Now about recycling it with a biodiesel company? If not, mix with kitty litter or other absorbent and discard in trash.
Don’t do that, it only delays the clog for a few meters which means the street in front of your house is going to be dug up while they clear the clog there.
I save a few bottles under the sink for things like this and just fill them up, cap them tightly and dispose in the garbage. It’s frowned upon as the correct method here is to bring it to the hazardous waste disposal site (oils and batteries stall) and let them deal with it correctly.
You could make several slow-burning, yummy-smelling Molotov cocktails.
(For lawful uses only, of course).
<snip>
Please don’t do this. The country people don’t like it, and we have weapons.
As for the OP’s problem, if you have an old coffee can (or whatever they call those plastic things coffee comes in nowadays), stuff in some waste paper you need to get rid of and then poor in the oil and pop on the lid. The paper will soak up the oil enough that it won’t be a spill hazard in your trash bag.
i just remember watching documentaries on the sewers our infrastructure is old, and stuff like oil/fats really screw up what we do have down there, its just a bad idea.
just get rid of it bit by bit in old food containers/jars you can throw out with the trash.
If you cannot put in a plastic bottles and trash it then thoroughly mix it with about 250ml of pure dishwashing liquid and flush it.
Just google “cold process soap” and you’ll get a pretty good idea.
Basically each sort of fat has its own value on some table, and based on those values, the soap makers put in some measured amount of sodium hydroxide (lye) solution that they’ve usually made from water & Red Devil lye.
Then they either boil it or blend it together to start that reaction, and once it’s started, they let it “ripen” for some period of time so that all the sodium hydroxide is reacted with something, and there isn’t any free NaOH to burn anyone. It takes a while to solidify though; the fats and solutions have to be at some moderately warm temperature first.
Then they cut it up and use it.
Here you go, DIY biofuel.
Yea 3 liters is just about enough that someone might bother to pick it up if you put an ad up on craigs list…just tell them to pick it up from the curb and leave it in some old milk jugs or something.
If you have a cat, you can pour it into the bag of used litter and then dispose of the whole mess that way.
(Since you’re in a multi-floor flat, I’m assuming your flat is connected to a sewer line, not a septic system)
I used to pour the remains of the frying pan grease down the sink back when I was young and foolish. Even with limited batchelor cooking and a lot of hot water running, eventually it clogged solid below the basement cleanout before the main drain. bit of hand-router and eventually the drain was unplugged, then frequent Drano until it ran better.
Now I pour the stuff into a used plastic container into the fridge, and toss it with the garbage. (Beef grease at least gets nice and hard.) That’s my suggestion for your problem. If you have a funnel, the 2-litre pop bottles sound like your best bet - less likely to leak. If you can find a bio-alternative, go for it. The trouble with using it in vehicles, I imagine, is that it could harden in cold weather and there could be bits needing filtering…
First off remember its biodegradable so you could pour it on the ground and it will degrade
The best way I’ve found especially in winter time is to mix it with old bread and bread crumbs and feed it to the birds. They go bat shit crazy on the stuff
Yeah, I will have a bonfire in my upstairs flat with no backyard. Thats the ticket!
Yes, I guess that is what I need to do, and hope that the foxes do not find it and bite it open so that it spills all over the sidewalk. Mostly the trash bags left out seem to survive (that is, there is not too much stuff spread around the street after collection day). Maybe if I refrigerate the jug of old oil before throwing it out, that will help a bit. Thanks to you and all the other people who suggested something similar.
In a medium sized town in the U.K. Urban foxes are endemic in most towns (and even big cities) in Britain now.
Incidentally, there are back yards (or gardens, as the people here would call them) all along this street. I just do not have any access to the one belonging to this house. The people in the downstairs flat have access, but I do not fancy asking them if I can get through to their garden so I can pour waste oil out there.
Well, it *would *solve the problem.
You know, what baffles me about the whole situation is that you don’t have any trash bins. Is this a cost-saving decision by your city or is it just “the way things are done?” Even in our fairly remote location, our trash hauler provides a container. An unprotected bag of trash wouldn’t last 2 hours here, what with coyotes, raccoons and wandering bands of dogs.
I wonder how long it would take to burn 3 liters of oil anyways, many times things just don’t burn as quickly as you’d imagine.
