AN INNOVATIVE cooking oil recycling project in Bradford Moor aimed at stopping sewers getting blocked is set to expand across the city after proving a success.

The scheme, from Karmand Community Centre and Yorkshire Water, encourages Bradford Moor residents to collect their waste cooking oil, such as ghee, into tubs, known as fat vats, rather than pouring them down the kitchen sink.

The tubs of cooking oil are collected by the Karmand Community Centre in a specially branded van provided by Yorkshire Water.

They are then poured into a 1,000 litre container and sold to process and transform into bio fuels used to power generator stations and supply to the National Grid.

A total of 85 households are involved in the project, which started in March last year, but it will gradually expand to 6,000 homes across Bradford Moor after a £10,000 cash injection from Yorkshire Water.

The fun day, held at the Karmand Community Centre, Barkerend Road, today, included a Yorkshire Cricket foundation event, face painting, bouncy castle and stalls.

Mohammed Shakeel, project manager at the Karmand Community Centre, said: "Thanks to the £10,000 grant from Yorkshire Water we are now able to expand this project to cover more of the Bradford Moor area.

"We hope to eventually collect as much as 1,000 litres of cooking oil a week from thousands of local houses which is really exciting.

"More than anything else though, it's great to see local people engaging in the project and understanding the benefits it can bring to the community as a whole."

Bradford Moor was identified by Yorkshire Water as a sewer blockage hotspot with 85 blockages recorded between 2011 and 2014. But since the scheme began there has only been one incident.

The firm pumped in £2.3million on the sewer system in Bradford Moor including work on sewer blockages.

The utility firm said just one litre of the cooking oils can generate enough electricity to make 240 cups of tea or power a flatscreen TV for three hours.

Duncan Woodhead, network protection technician at Yorkshire Water said: "We partnered with the Karmand Community Centre on this fats to fuel project to help educate people on the damage cooking oils can cause to sewers and to reduce sewer blockages.

"It's great to now expand it and get more residents taking part in this community initiative.

"Since launching the scheme, it has already been a great success with 1,000 litres of cooking oil collected and diverted from the sewers.

"A knock on benefit has also been the revenue opportunities created for the Karmand Community Centre to sell the cooking oils to renewable energy companies."