Residential Properties

How You Can Help

• Discard all fats, oils, and grease from cooking into sealable containers and discard them in the trash.
• Discard all food scraps into the trash and not down the sink, toilet, or into the garbage disposal.
• Use your sink strainer faithfully to collect "greasy" solids and empty it to the trash.
• Whenever possible, avoid using your garbage disposal. Scrape solid materials to the trash for disposal.
• Avoid the use of additives that dissolve grease. This allows the grease to liquefy and pass down the sewer line causing problems in other areas.

The City of Taunton is asking its residents to help in our effort to control FOG and can the grease!

What Managing FOG Can Do for You

• There are many ways your sewer line can become blocked, but a blockage from FOG is preventable.
• If you take a little time to manage FOG, you will protect your home from a possible FOG blockage.
• A sewer blockage on your property will be your responsibility to repair and clean up, costing you money.
• A breakout of sewage in your basement will subject your family to a number of health risks and damage personal items that will need to be professionally cleaned or may be unsalvageable.
• A breakout in your yard will not only be a health risk to your family, but to your neighbors in the community and the environment.
• Having a blockage in your sewer deems your home condemnable by the Board of Health. A home must have a functioning sanitary sewer under the Housing Code 105 Code of Massachusetts Regulations (CMR) 410.300 (PDF) Sanitary Drainage System Required
• The FOG you generate can also travel beyond your property into the city sewer before it creates a blockage. Managing FOG in your home will:
  • Help to prolong the life of the city's sewer system.
  • Help to protect the public and our environment from unnecessary health risks associated with wastewater contamination.
  • Reduce some of the maintenance costs on the city sewer by keeping it clear of FOG and minimizing the chances of sewer repairs due to FOG damage. Having no sewer line breaks in Taunton will mean avoiding Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)/Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fines for wastewater contamination due to FOG. Saving the City of Taunton money on sewer line issues will help lessen the need for increasing sewer line fees in the years to come, saving residents money.

Private Septic System

If you have your own private septic system, the need to be managing FOG is equally important in protecting your home, family, and environment from FOG-related damages and health risks.

If the FOG does not end up creating a blockage in your home plumbing, then it will exit your home and collect in your septic tank or cesspool. FOG is lighter than water, so it will float at the top of the tank/cesspool. Once in the tank/cesspool, it will begin to turn into a solid as it cools and create a mat of FOG. As more FOG enters the tank/cesspool, this mat gets thicker until the tank/cesspool cannot hold it any longer and it makes its way out to the septic leaching field where it clogs the holes in the drain field pipes and builds a mat of FOG on the leaching field, resulting in a failed soil absorption system.

The failed system will need to be repaired at the owner's cost and this can be quite expensive.

Title V 310 CMR 15 (PDF) is the Massachusetts regulation on private septic systems and the Board of Health is the local enforcement agent of this regulation. If a system is in failure, the Board of Health requires it to be repaired within 2 years unless there is a serious danger to the environment and public health. Also, as mentioned before, a home without a functioning septic system is condemnable under the Housing Code 105 CMR 410.300 (PDF) and Title V 310 CMR 15 (PDF).

For more information on private septic systems, you can go to the City of Taunton Board of Health website by clicking here or you can call the Board of Health at 508-821-1400.