Video of Sewage at Michigan Restaurant is Grease Trap Overflow

Video of Sewage at Michigan Restaurant is Grease Trap Overflow

A local health official said that the “sewage” captured on video by a customer at a Michigan fast food restaurant was actually a grease trap spill.

“It wasn’t fecal material, which a lot of people when they think of raw sewage backing up they think of fecal material,” said Paul Andriacchi, the environmental health director with the Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency. “But anything that backs up in a drain pipe, comes up in the facility, is considered sewage.”

Andriacchi said the fast food restaurant should have closed to clean up the spill. However the agency didn’t know about the incident until Monday morning. Immediately they sent an official to the fast food restaurant and began an investigation.

“The way it was explained to us, the restaurant had a pump company come out to clean out their a grease traps. It’s something that they do every couple of months,” Andriacchi said. “In the process of cleaning out the grease trap one of them was rather full and it spilled over.”

The spillover is what customer Steve Littley saw on Sunday when he went to the fast food restaurant. He said there was cardboard all over the kitchen floor, flies buzzing everywhere and a stench so powerful outside that he and his friend “didn’t want to take the next breath.”

“At that time we decided that I had lost my appetite. My buddy lost his appetite,” Littley said. “So I took the food back in and kindly asked for my money back. And the cashiers behind the counter were very polite.”

After returning his food, Littley decided to take a video of his experience, he said. He wondered why they didn’t close.

“At that point they should’ve closed down,” Andriacchi said. “Not only does that create potentially unsanitary conditions but also it creates a hazard to the employees.”

When Andriacchi spoke with the owners, he said they told him they felt the spill didn’t “meet the definition of a sewage.” He assured them it did and that in the future it’s been to stop serving customers and close their doors.

“We made sure that they understood that point and they did,” he said. “They were going to pass that information along to their staff.”

To prevent problems in your commercial kitchen and the negative publicity that can result from having a clogged grease trap, consider installing The Drain Strainer. Invented by a former restaurant owner, The Drain Strainer is a commercial garbage disposal alternative that captures food solids that could clog your pipes and grease trap while still allowing your sinks to drain quickly.

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