Grease (Hauling) is the Word

Restaurants, caterers and other cooking facilities need to avoid discharging grease into the public sewer system. Therefore, an entire market has opened up, leaving room for expansion with some liquid waste haulers and vacuum truck manufacturers. “I notice people wanting to expand their business into the grease hauling arena are buying trucks,” Kevin Keegan, owner of KeeVac Industries, Inc., said, and he also said that the market is there, “I talked to someone who picks up 6000 gallons a day.”

The oil, once it’s loaded onto a vacuum truck, is taken to a biodiesel refinery where it is cleaned for other uses like fuel or even as an ingredient for animal feed. KeeVac primarily uses aluminum for their truck tanks because it is lighter, which allows for more versatility. A larger tank can go on the same sized chassis as a smaller tank and works directly with their customers to design the ultimate vacuum truck system for your company’s specific needs.

Keegan got his start in the industry doing auto and truck repair before he started his own portable restroom company, Affordable Portable Services. After six years, he sold that company to United Site Services and became Fleet Manager at United Site’s Colorado location. Taking all the knowledge he learned up until that point, he left United Site Services to start KeeVac in attempt to help vacuum truck owners improve their efficiency through lightweight aluminum trucks mounted on correctly specified chassis. Kevin’s personal experience in servicing portable toilets and septic tanks has resulted in numerous improvements for operator ease, operator safety and reduced maintenance costs.

KeeVac offers a number of sizes for people interested in hauling oil from restaurants. They offer a 300 gallon tank that fits on a pick-up truck and go all the way up to 5500-8000 gallon semi-trucks. Diamond Environmental Services also offers a variety of sizes to accommodate grease trap service jobs of all sizes, and use trucks dedicated specifically to servicing grease traps. They cater to most of Southern California, and are committed to working with their customers to ensure they correctly fit the truck size to the size of the project.

Diamond also works closely with their customers when servicing grease traps. Restaurants and cooking facilities can be held liable if grease and oil are not removed properly so it is important, not only for the environment and in preventing long-term damage, but that the customer not be held responsible if something goes wrong or if the grease trap is not serviced properly.

Pik Rite, Inc. specializes in vegetable harvesting equipment, and their name says it all. Located in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Pik Rite designs and manufactures quality products, including commercial vacuum tanks, trailer-mounted septic tankers with up to 5400 gallon capacity, vacuum tanks, as well as slide-in, custom and portable restroom units. Pik Rite also manufactures Marcellus Shale gas drilling water trucks. Marcellus Shale is an natural gas reserve local to the Applachian Basin, which cuts across much of the Northeastern United States.

Keith Huber, Inc. also believes in working closely with their customers to provide them with the best possible service. “Give the customer more than what was expected,” the late Keith Huber, the company’s founder, said on the company’s website. Huber founded the company in 1982, after a decade of working in the vacuum truck industry, and was the industry leader in creating and building universal parts. Today, the company’s Wet Vac unit, the Dominator, is “the workhorse of the industry.” Equipped for any type of job, the Dominator can handle both hazardous and non-hazardous waste, such as grease and oil.

“There’s a lot going on with vegetable oil,” Keegan remarked. Unlike many vacuum truck manufacturers, he’s always marketed to the grease hauling industry, but he’s noticed a shift in that area of the waste service industry, “Restaurants used to pay to have the oil hauled,” he said of the leftover cooking oil, “Now they either get it hauled for free or people pay them to haul it.”

Story by Megan McClure

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