Collection of household used cooking oil in urban areas of Greece: opinions and practices of local inhabitants

Abstract The implementation of household-level used cooking oil collection systems in the EU is still in its early stages of development, and the level of households’ participation remains low. Limited literature is available on this subject. Our study aims to contribute to the current literature by filling the knowledge gap from the viewpoint of the system user, the inhabitant. We conducted, in 2023, an online qualitative survey to explore the current state, habits, practices, and opinions of the inhabitants of the Thessaloniki Urban Area regarding used cooking oil handling. The findings, from the 1,429 participants in our survey, showed a significant lack of knowledge regarding the recycling of used cooking oil (33.6% unaware) and a low participation rate (20.9%), even among those who typically recycle (24%). The dumping of used cooking oil into a sink (48.1%) or toilet (22.3%) is the prevailing method of disposal for UCO non-recyclers. Lack of knowledge (67.2%) is the most frequent reason for not recycling, followed by inadequate organisation of the collection programs (11.3%) and the inconvenience of collection sites being far from the residences (6.7%). Almost all the residents were dissatisfied with the state and municipalities’ attempts to advertise and inform them of this issue. Our findings demonstrate the urgent need to address the issue of collecting used cooking oil from households to protect the environment and meet the EU goal of incorporating renewable sources in its overall energy consumption until 2030.