The Holidays: a time to give back - your used cooking oil, that is...

Well, here is your chance to be Santa, and give your used cooking oil as a gift to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC). What's best, your gift will have a dual benefit: help keep our sewers clean, and be converted to biofuel for use in vehicles, reducing our carbon footprint.

First, collect your used cooking oil, and then hurry up and drop it off at the following places on December 26 and 27, and also January 2 and 3:

* COSTCO WAREHOUSE - 450 10th St (at Bryant)
Saturday: 9:30am-7pm / Sunday: 10am-6pm
* Select WHOLE FOODS STORES
During store hours, 8am-10pm
-- FRANKLIN –1765 California St (at Franklin)
-- POTRERO HILL: 450 Rhode Island St. (at 17th St.)
-- SOMA – 399 4th Street (at Harrison)
* DOGPATCH BIOFUELS – 765 Pennsylvania Ave (between 22nd & 23rd St)
Saturday: 11am-4pm / closed on Friday and Sunday
* HAIGHT ASHBURY NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL RECYCLING CENTER (HANC) – 755 Frederick St (at Arguello.)
Saturday: 9am-4pm / Sunday: 12pm-4pm / closed on Friday

For more information, and to see the locations where you can drop off year-round, visit www.SFGreasecycle.org.

Happy OILLESSdays Everyone!

Storm headed our way... Get prepared and give a hand.

The SFPUC and DPW are hard at work trying to get catch basins cleaned before the rains start on Sunday. And if you live in a flood-prone area, DPW is providing San Franciscans (with proof of residency) up to 10 free filled or unfilled sandbags at the DPW Operations Yard, 2323 Cesar Chavez Blvd. (enter at Kansas and Marin Streets), Monday-Sunday, 7:00 am to 4:00 pm.

With 20,000 catch basins in the city we can't get to all of them so now is the time to help yourselves and your neighbors. If you see a lot of leaves and trash over a catch basin, give a helping hand and sweep it up. You can even compost the leaves! And if a catch basin starts flooding during the rains, oftentimes it is the result of a errant plastic bag or trash preventing the water from properly draining.

Just a little bit of elbow grease and VOILA... a free flowing catch basin that is no longer flooding a neighborhood. Of course, if moving the blockage doesn't work. Give us a call at 3-1-1 and we'll send a crew out there to investigate.