Grease traps and trade waste: a café and restaurant manager's checklist

Manage trade waste by identifying the correct wastewater provider, the permission and conditions that apply to your premises, and the people responsible for daily controls, servicing and records. Put those responsibilities in writing. A contractor booking or a landlord assurance is not enough if nobody checks that the required work and reporting were completed.

This guide is for café and restaurant owners and managers organising ongoing operations. It does not provide plumbing, tank-entry or pump-out instructions. Do not open a grease arrestor, enter a pit or attempt servicing yourself. Use the relevant provider, appropriately licensed contractors and qualified advisers for the actual system.

Find the provider and the current permission

Identify who manages wastewater services for the premises. Do not assume the local council is the correct contact or that a nearby business has the same provider and conditions. Use the current account and premises records to establish the service area.

Obtain the applicable trade-waste permit, agreement or other permission and read its conditions with the responsible person. Confirm the business name, premises, activities, equipment and contact details. Ask the provider about discrepancies or missing records before relying on an old document.

Water Corporation's food handling and preparation guidance states that relevant businesses must obtain a permit before discharging into its wastewater system. It links grease-arrestor servicing frequency to the permit and requires a licensed liquid-waste contractor. These are Water Corporation requirements, not a national schedule for every café.

Keep the permission where the duty manager can find it, with access controls appropriate to the information it contains. Add it to the venue document register.

Confirm which equipment serves your venue

Ask a qualified person to identify the relevant grease arrestor or other pre-treatment equipment and the fixtures connected to it. Record the asset identifier and safe location information without asking staff to investigate drains or lift covers.

Check whether the system serves only your tenancy or several businesses. If it is shared, ask how usage changes, servicing access, costs and faults are managed. A shared system can leave each tenant believing another person is responsible.

Sydney Water's pre-treatment guidance illustrates that equipment acceptance and sizing requirements depend on the provider and business activity. Do not copy a size, maintenance interval or technical specification from an unrelated service area.

Keep available plans and contractor reports together. If the information is uncertain, label it unconfirmed and ask the provider or licensed plumber to resolve it. An old handwritten note should not become the only source of asset information.

Agree responsibilities across the tenancy

Create a responsibility record covering the provider, landlord or property manager, business owner, duty manager and servicing contractor. Ask each party to confirm the matters relevant to them. The lease may allocate costs without settling every regulatory duty.

Useful questions include: who holds the permission, who books servicing, who provides site access, who pays, who receives the service record and who submits any required report? Also identify who is contacted after hours and who can authorise urgent work.

Give each recurring task one person responsible for checking completion. Several people may contribute, but “landlord or manager” is an invitation for a missed task. The owner should know which obligations remain with the business even when someone else arranges the work.

Review the arrangement with the provider and your lease adviser if responsibility is disputed. Do not resolve the uncertainty by silently dropping the task from the venue calendar.

Keep food solids and oil out of the wrong route

Translate the provider's requirements into clear daily practices for the kitchen and wash-up area. Staff need to know how food scraps, used cooking oil and other waste are collected, stored and removed under the venue's approved process.

Use appropriate collection containers and strainers where required, and follow the checked cleaning process. Keep waste handling away from food contamination risks. Do not pour used oil down a drain or assume hot water makes disposal acceptable.

Do not add chemicals, enzymes or other treatments to the system on a supplier's sales claim alone. Confirm any proposed product or method with the provider and relevant advisers. It must not replace required servicing or conflict with equipment and discharge conditions.

The cleaning and sanitising schedule guide helps assign ordinary tasks. Keep specialist servicing outside the staff cleaning schedule so the two are not confused.

Schedule servicing from actual conditions

Enter the required servicing frequency or due date from the permission and provider's instructions. Record where that requirement came from. Do not choose a universal monthly or quarterly interval because it appears in a generic checklist.

Confirm that the contractor is appropriately licensed for the work and waste transport involved. Agree the asset, scope, access arrangements, service timing and records to be supplied. Ask what happens if access fails or the contractor cannot attend.

Set a reminder early enough to resolve booking problems before the due date. A reminder on the day of service may be too late if the contractor needs access through another tenancy or the property manager holds the keys.

If trade volume or the menu changes, ask the provider whether the existing arrangement needs reassessment. Do not reduce the interval because the system looks quiet from above or increase capacity based only on a contractor's informal suggestion.

Prepare access without undertaking the work

Before the visit, confirm the contractor's arrival window and the person meeting them. Identify any coordination needed with neighbouring tenants or the landlord. Keep the agreed access route available and arrange the work under the site's safety process.

Staff should remain within their role. Moving ordinary portable items from a safe access route is different from opening covers, handling waste or assisting with specialist equipment. Let the contractor manage the work within their competence and agreed responsibilities.

Consider how the visit affects food preparation, customers, deliveries and other work. Ask the contractor and relevant advisers what restrictions or controls are required. Do not invent a routine that places staff or customers beside an open service area.

After the visit, have the authorised person confirm that the area is safe for normal use. Do not treat the contractor's departure as proof that every operational restriction has ended.

Close out the service record

Collect the service documentation and match it to the correct premises and asset. Check the date, work completed, contractor details and any reported defect or follow-up. Retain waste documentation and other evidence required by the applicable arrangement.

Confirm whether the provider requires reporting and who is responsible for submitting it. For example, Water Corporation's current guidance includes reporting pump-outs within seven days. Other providers may use different processes, so record your actual requirement rather than copying that deadline nationally.

Keep proof of submission where required. An invoice can show that money was charged without showing that the provider received the information it needs. Record the next service date and any unresolved issue separately.

If a report is missing, chase it promptly and tell the responsible manager. Do not mark “complete” simply because accounts has paid the bill.

Respond to missed service or suspected failure

If servicing is missed, contact the contractor and provider through the agreed escalation process. Establish what action is required and whether operations must change. Do not choose an informal extension without checking the applicable conditions.

For odour, slow drainage, suspected overflow or damage, keep people away from any unsafe or contaminated area and escalate promptly. Staff should not investigate by opening the system, entering confined spaces or attempting to clear a blockage.

Where wastewater may affect food areas, involve the responsible food-safety person and relevant authority. Follow the venue's incident and closure procedures as applicable. Protect customers and staff while qualified people assess the situation.

Record what was observed, when, where and who was contacted. Separate observations from diagnoses: “water visible near the service cover at 10:15 am” is evidence; “grease trap failed” may be an unconfirmed conclusion.

A shared-premises example

In this hypothetical example, a café shares a service area with two other food businesses. The landlord books the liquid-waste contractor, but the café owner discovers that nobody has confirmed who receives the service records or submits required reports.

The owner contacts the provider and property manager to clarify the permission holder and reporting arrangement. They agree a documented process: the property manager coordinates access, the contractor supplies the service record, and a named responsible party completes the required reporting. The café manager checks that the relevant evidence is available to the business.

At the next visit, access is blocked by another tenant's delivery. The manager reports the failed attendance immediately and follows the provider's direction rather than treating a new booking as automatic permission to wait.

The lesson is not that landlords always own the task. It is that responsibilities need confirmation, evidence and a response when the plan fails. The same division of work may be wrong for another lease or provider.

Review after operational changes

Include trade waste in reviews of a changed menu, increased production, new equipment, altered tenancy or ownership. Tell the provider what is changing and ask what information or approval is required before implementing changes that affect discharge.

Update the responsibility record when managers, property agents or contractors change. Test the contact route and retain the current version. A named person who left six months ago is not an escalation plan.

Use the equipment maintenance guide to track related faults and follow-up, while retaining provider-specific requirements as the controlling information for trade waste.

Your next action

Find the current permission, identify the next service requirement and confirm who checks both completion and reporting. If any of those answers is missing, resolve it with the provider, landlord and contractor before relying on the existing calendar.

The Venue Opening & Operations Pack supplies general cleaning and inspection records. It does not supply a trade-waste permit, specialist servicing log or compliance assessment. The free Venue Opening Checklist supports broader shift readiness.

References

• Food handling and preparation — Water Corporation. Provider-specific WA requirements.
• Grease traps and other pre-treatment — Sydney Water. Provider-specific requirements.

Source review date: 5 September 2026. Confirm the actual permission, service area and responsibilities with the relevant provider and qualified advisers.