Bill Hadley has a potent weapon in the war against grease: bacteria. William hadley pokes around places where most people wouldn't stick the end of an umbrella. Last year his Environmental Biotech Inc. (EBI), a 90-unit franchise based in Sarasota, Fla., pulled in $9.6 million systemwide by eliminating grease, starch, sugar and gelatin trapped in hundreds of corporate sewer lines. He doesn't rely on the plumber's snake or caustic chemicals. Instead, the company uses a stationary pump about the size of a lunchbox to inject active, or "vegetative," bacteria—harmless strains of facultative anaerobes—into the drains of restaurants, meatpackers, hospitals and photo processing labs. Gradually the microbes break down the waste, leaving behind carbon dioxide and water.
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