Me and a friend of mine have set out to make biodiesel, we spent all last week trying to find oil but have had no luck. We even thought about driving an hour away to the beach where theres a bunch of seafood restaurants. We have run across two different scenarios:

1. the oil that is there is nothing but sludge

2. big sucking companies have a contract with the restaurant.

any tips? i need help seriously diesel is $4.00 gallon here!

I found exactly the same thing. Your only hope is to get to the new start up before the suckers get to them. You'll need and iron clad agreement and probably have to taek the suckers to court after they steal your oil.

The alternative is to buy reclaimed WVO from the suckers. You will probably pay $2 + per gallon. It will most likely be de-watered however so you can start processing quicker and you won't have to add the cost of pre-heating to drive out the water. My quest found that it would be filtered too, so you save some effort there.

[coffee]

You need to find some places where you eat a lot, or know someone and establish relationships with them. Your state or city might make it legally necessary for the restaurant to get a contract with a renderer to remove waste oil. That doesnt mean they cant give you their oil. It just means you cannot touch whats in the waste company's bin.
Negotiate with them and see if theyre willing to put waste oil back into the cubes it came in. Or you can offer to provide 55gal drums to store it.
It is worth taking a sample and doing a titration on it to see if its worth getting. a titration value under 5 is recommended. Ive been told to avoid hydrogenated oils like some chain restaurants use. Most likely you will run into used soy oil.

Hit up the Chinese restaurants. They usually have very good oil that titrates very well. As of right now I dont have your problem but I can see where it will be a issue soon. Certain citys have ordinances that require the oil be removed by a recycler. I bet it costs way to much to get a permit to be a recycler too. Anything to keep you from getting ahead... or just staying afloat. [verymad] Methanol prices keep going up also. Next they will tax KOH or dye it red to bust you down.

My big problem has been theives... I've had several accounts for 4 1/2 years, and the theives are now cutting off my locks, sawing out my grates, and in two cases, outright stealing the entire bin. Ba$tards. An account that used to get me 120-150 gallons a month now gets me 40 gallons, because the WVO hijackers slink in during the middle of the night and jackal my grease.
Cops tell me it's a civil matter, and the 2 restaurants that have surveillance systems pull lousy images; no viable plate images.

^^^^^ Where are you at? I will dress up like a 55 gal. drum and stake it out for you. I bet they would leave some grease in their pants when they try to pick up that barrel. :o I bet if the thieves were stealing gas out of the cop cars they would do something. All they have to do is roll through there 2 times a night and I am sure it would scare them off.

heheh oh man.. I just inhaled my coffee. I had this image of a group of kids being assaulted by an angry 55gal drum. too funny.
But seriously, that stinks.. I dont know what Id recommend besides asking the owner about using cubes and storing them inside. Maybe you could make more frequent pickups.

Ive heard rumors methanol will drop again in a month or so. We'll see..

The grainy video shows 2 male hispanics and a beat-up 70's Chevy flatbed at 12:11 AM and 3:03 AM. This is Corona, CA... I appreciate the offer, but the most likely outcome would be a white guy with GSW head & torso found with no wallet or shoes. It's gang territory. I do my pickups between 9 and 11 AM, because the jokers are mostly still sleeping off the previous night's activities. Lots of grafitti, even on the oil bins (I purposely let the bins get nasty to augment the futility of marking them up).