Restaurants Robbed Of Old Cooking Oil

Lock up your garbage, restaurateurs. If economic troubles and rising gas and food costs weren't already enough of a problem for restaurants, now people are going around and pilfering their old cooking oil.

According to USA Today, high gas prices and the increase in biodiesel production have increased the value of the cooking oil and made it a better target for thieves. Waste companies currently sell used cooking oil for $0.15 a pound, up from $0.05 a pound in 2005.

Not everybody's selling the old oil, though. Some of the oil rustlers are people who have converted their cars to run on biodiesel. The DIYers can use instructions from the Internet to turn their ill-gotten oil into fuel for their cars.

"Bottom line, it's worth money," said Phil Bruno, general manager at waste oil recycler American By-Products. "There's a lot of people who think they're going to get rich or save a fortune ... running their diesel vehicles on cooking oil after it's processed."