Used cooking oil is now being accepted and recycled across all Monmouthshire Household Waste Recycling Centres.

Monmouthshire County Council together with its recycling sites contractor, Viridor, has installed special tanks for five of the major recycling sites across the area.

Martin Williams, Viridor’s Area Manager, said: "Used cooking oil recycling tanks are already successfully operating at a huge number of Viridor’s sites across the UK. It’s fantastic to know that residents of south east Wales can all contribute to the nation’s electricity generation in such a simple and effective way’’.

The new tanks will divert as much used cooking oil as possible from either costly landfill or clogging up the county’s drains.

The oil will be used to generate clean, green electricity after being processed by Living Fuels - the UK’s leading used cooking oil to renewable energy eco-firm.

Living Fuels operations director, Rob Murphy said: "It has often been difficult to dispose of used cooking oil. Whether sent to costly landfill - where it produces harmful greenhouse gases - or poured down the sink, it currently costs around £15m a year to repair the havoc it wreaks in damaging drains.”

The chemical-free, filtering and settling of used cooking oil creates the bioliquid LF100 which is then used in combined heat and power facilities. Living Fuels estimates that the average three-litre contents of a south-east Wales chip fryer generates enough power to make 720 cups of tea.