Joe, a few years back I encountered the same sort of situation. Until a better source came along I provided my own barrel for the restaurant to fill. As I understand, the oil does not belong to the recycler until it is deposited in their dumpster. I suppose there might be some liability issues of a barrel behind the restaurant in a litigious society, but I stayed below the radar for a year or so until a better source came along. I have found that the small restaurants are not a good target for the big recyclers, so they are much more willing to drain their oil back into the 35lb. cubies and set it out for me. In fact, at this time my oil is delivered to my garage by a fellow bio burner. Might look into one of these ideas.

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John Schroader
bio burnin' 83 300D, '83 300 SD, '79 240D
"I've never met a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else" Ben Franklin
"You cannot permanently help a man by doing for him what he could and should do for himself" Abraham Lincoln