Heinnie's restaurant owner catches used cooking oil theft on camera

ELKHART, Ind. -- What may look like waste to some is actually a valuable commodity for restaurants, and one Elkhart restaurant owner says it's been stolen multiple times.  

 Used cooking oil, a common restaurant waste product, is valuable and can be converted to biodiesel.

 Heinnie's restaurant owner Troy DeShone says his used oil has now been stolen for the third or fourth time.

 "I was dumping oil one day and noticed that it had gone from the top of the bin to about halfway," DeShone said.  

 When he checked his cameras, footage showed a truck backing into a parking lot with a man taking a tube and inserting it into the bin. From there, he reportedly took most of the oil.

 "I'm not surprised," DeShone said.  

 There's a proper way to dispose of used cooking oil, and the restaurant sells the oil to companies to be properly converted to biodiesel. Biodiesel is a component of diesel, a product you can find at the gas pump. 

 However, improperly handling or processing used oil can be extremely dangerous.  

 Evergreen Grease, a company down the road from Heinnie's, prepares restaurants' used oil and sends it off to companies to be converted to biodiesel.  

 "There certainly would be fire risks [and] chemical risks," said owner Paul Dickerson.

 "You're dealing with some chemicals in there – sodium methylate, sodium hydroxide [and] methanol. Methanol is highly flammable and explosive. It can be quite a danger, and there has been serious injury and death resolved in people trying to mis-manufacture products."

 Cooking oil thefts have been a nationwide problem for restaurants in recent months, with arrests even being made on the east coast.   

 "It's a national problem right now," Dickerson says.  

 "There are organized theft rings that are stealing grease in multiple states at a time. Sometimes it gets exported, sometimes it gets unfortunately relabeled – kind of like you steal a car try to sell it off as not a stolen car."   

 DeShone did not file a police report and says he has given oil to people who have asked for it, because he understands the high price of diesel, but says stealing is too far.