Recycled cooking oil surfaces at tables
- Source: Global Times
- [02:16 March 22 2010]
- Comments
Collecting waste oil has become a lucrative industry in China since prices of edible oil surged between 2007 and 2008, according to a report by the Xinhua News Agency on Saturday.
Chen said collectors sometimes fight to get the right to obtain the waste. Some even pay a high price to bid for the right to collect. Whenever a new restaurant opens, there will be oil collectors contacting the restaurant owner.
"They usually pay restaurants 1,000 ($147) to 6,000 yuan each year, and more for hot-pot restaurants, since they discharge more waste oil," Chen said.
Chen did not comment on how hotels deal with their waste, but Zeng Wei, manager of an oil-refining plant in Wuhan, told Xinhua that some plants would pay more than 40,000 yuan per year to get a hotel's kitchen waste, due to the potential profits.
One ton of cooking oil made from kitchen waste costs around 1,000 yuan, while edible oil costs over 6,000 yuan per ton, according to Zeng's estimation. A processor could easily sell one ton of recycled oil at half the price of normal oil to make 2,000 yuan.
James Jia, a student at China Agricultural University, told the Global Times that he sees a waste collection wagon at the back door of his university's cafeteria pumping something from the drain at around 8 pm every day.
"They have never done this in the daytime. I don't know what they do with the substance they pump from the drain," he said.
Lack of inspection is another reason dirty oil continues flowing into the market.
"The processing and trading of it is supervised by the Administration of Industry and Commerce. Once the oil travels to the dining table, it is under the inspection of the Ministry of Health," Chen said. "No specific department is tracking down the issue during the entire process."
Huang appealed to the public to stay away from buying and using cheap oil, like blended oil or oil without clear sources, saying the public has difficulty in telling whether oil is of good quality or not.
On Thursday, the State Food and Drug Administration issued a high-profile crackdown on illegally recycled cooking oil, calling on all levels of inspection agents to punish manufacturers providing dirty oil and restaurants purchasing oil of unclear origin.
"If food-service providers are found to be using cooking oil from an unclear source, or if they have bought 'drainage oil,' their operations will be immediately halted and they will be dealt with in accordance with the law," said a notice posted on the administration's website.
He Dongping said the National Grain and Oil Standardization Committee is stepping up efforts to draft measures and standards on testing drainage oil and the management of drainage oil refined from kitchen waste. The measures are subject to evaluation next month.
China's white paper on drainage oil, drafted by the committee, is due to be submitted to the state authorities by July.
Song Shengxia, Guo Qiang and Fu Wen contributed to this story
