Science experiments... with garbage!

In Japan, garbage is sorted into a few major categories. The main two are burnables and plastics, and those get picked up every week. Aside from that are non-burnables and recyclables, which get collected once a month. In my efforts to empty out my apartment, I've had trouble with a few difficult-to-dispose-of items, one of which is cooking oil. Being a liquid, you can't put it in the burnable garbage. You also can't pour it out. So how do you get rid of expired cooking oil?

The answer, it turns out, is oil-absorbing powder. But it's not just a powder that soaks up oil; it actually turns the oil into solid fat so you can throw it away with the burnable garbage. First, you heat the oil a bit. Then you stir in the powder until it dissolves. After sitting and cooling for a few hours, the oil will turn into a hard and waxy substance that you can throw away. Though it's obviously not edible, the powder is non-toxic, so it's safe to use with your regular pots and pans.

During the process, I took a few pictures. Here's the product:

And here's the oil after it has mostly solidified:

Cool, don't you think? When I went to take it out, it didn't come loose quite as easily as pictured on the box, but it did come out in a few large chunks. I have to admit, I was actually a little sad when I finished throwing away all of my oil.