NEW YORK, May 31: As the burgeoning fuel crisis continues to undermine people’s lives, creative entrepreneurs have made stealing once useless restaurant fryer grease into valuable currency to survive.

At fast food outlet in America “fryer grease bandits” are seen rummaging through the restaurant garbage in search for the discarded grease n order to steal it and sell it for a profit, says a news report published on Friday.

“Fryer grease has become gold,” a restaurant owner was quoted as saying.

“And just over a year ago, I had to pay someone to take it away.”

The processed fryer oil, which is called yellow grease, is actually not trash.

The grease is traded on the booming commodities market. Its value has increased in recent months to historic highs, driven by the even higher prices of gas and ethanol, making it an ever more popular form of biodiesel to fuel cars and trucks.

According to a report in a newspaper, in 2000, yellow grease was trading for 7.6 cents per pound. On Thursday, its price was about 33 cents a pound, or almost $2.50 a gallon.

Biodiesel is derived by processing vegetable oil or animal fat with alcohol.

It is increasingly available around the United States, but it is expensive.