Cooking oil collection Friday in Great Neck

Forget Black Friday. In Great Neck, it's Greasy Friday.

As shoppers swarm area malls, employees of the Great Neck Water Pollution Control District will be driving around the district to pick up used fried turkey grease to turn it into biofuel.

Deep-frying a turkey -- which has become popular in recent years -- requires several gallons of cooking oil. Properly disposing of such large amounts can be difficult, district superintendent Christopher Murphy said. His crews will help make disposal easier.

District residents can call or click online to request a pickup from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday. Residents should cap their fryers and hand them over to collection teams, who will pour the waste oil into a bin and take it to the district processing facility.

The measure helps keep sewers clean and gives the district a way to cheaply power items run normally on diesel fuel.

"When oil and grease get poured into a drain, they adhere to the inside of sewer pipes, reducing the inside diameters, which causes buildup and blockage," district chairman Jerry Landsberg said.

Since 2006, the district has collected used grease from area restaurants through the Food to Fuel program. The waste oil fuels the district's five fleet trucks, a generator and two boilers -- all of which were built to run on diesel.

The cost to produce biodiesel fuel from grease is about $1.17 a gallon, officials said. The average cost per gallon of diesel on Long Island Monday was $4.18, according to AAA New York.

"Our first pickup will basically make enough fuel to cover the other pickups," Murphy said.

In the five years since Food to Fuel started, the district has produced 8,000 gallons of biofuel.

The oil is filtered and heated to 120 degrees. Methanol and potassium hydroxide are added and the mixture sits for eight hours. Glycerin is drained, leaving behind biofuel, a yellow oil the consistency of maple syrup.

Biodiesel is the fastest-growing alternative fuel in the U.S. In 2001, 10 million gallons were used. By 2009, that number had grown to 339 million gallons, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

The Great Neck Water Pollution Control District covers more than 15,000 businesses and residents in the villages of Saddle Rock and Kensington, and part of the villages of Great Neck, Thomaston, Great Neck Plaza and unincorporated areas in Manhasset.District residents can schedule a pickup by calling 516-482-0238 or by going online to www.gnwpcd.net.