Waste oil illegally siphoned off from sewers was used to make biodiesel
By Feng Zengkun, The Straits Times, 6 Mar 2014
Its investigations into two incidents there found the waste oil was taken from grease traps that collect waste, which is supposed to be disposed of at one of the national water agency PUB's water reclamation plants.
Members of the public spotted a couple extracting the oil in two separate incidents in Jurong.
The NEA said anyone who collects or disposes of such oil illegally can be fined up to $2,000.
It added that it is investigating another case in Toa Payoh earlier this week, which the police said involved two men.
The agency explained that food establishments in Singapore are required to provide grease traps and maintain them regularly by hiring licensed general waste collectors.
These traps are installed as part of the sewerage system to prevent grease from clogging it.
The collectors are supposed to use vacuum trucks to empty the traps and dispose of the waste at a designated reclamation plant.
The NEA said it carries out checks at food outlets to ensure that ingredients used, including cooking oil, are from approved and licensed sources.
"There have been no previous incidents or person caught by NEA for illegal clearing of grease traps, or instances of food shops or food stalls using cooking oil from illegal sources in the past five years," a spokesman said late last month.
The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority added that it checks licensed food manufacturing establishments, including those that produce or use cooking oil, and takes oil and food product samples for testing.
It also inspects and tests samples of imported food, including cooking oil. To date, it has not come across any use of waste oil in its checks.
"We also have not received any feedback on the use of waste oil in imported cooking oil or food manufacturing establishments," a spokesman added.
But biodiesel producers said that the illegal siphoning of waste oil has been going on for years.
The opportunists who siphoned such oil would later sell it.
A company director with more than 10 years' experience in the industry, who declined to be named, admitted that he occasionally buys four to seven tonnes of the waste oil to produce biodiesel.
A company director with more than 10 years' experience in the industry, who declined to be named, admitted that he occasionally buys four to seven tonnes of the waste oil to produce biodiesel.
"Sometimes the sellers will tell us it's good oil but we have a test kit because third parties may mix the oil," he said. "We pay about 30 cents for 1kg of grease trap oil."
Another veteran who has been in the industry for more than a decade said some illegal collectors sell the oil in Malaysia. The buyers blend the cheaper, toxic gutter oil with crude palm oil and sell the mix to unsuspecting customers in Third World countries.
"You can mix up to 50 tonnes of the gutter oil with 5,000 or 10,000 tonnes of crude palm oil and nobody will know," said the veteran, who also declined to be named.
Mr Allan Lim, chief executive of Alpha Biofuels, which works with companies such as Marina Bay Sands to recycle used cooking oil into biodiesel, said more regulation is needed to prevent such illegal, cross-border sales.
"I've seen the effects in Cambodia, where children in remote villages become very ill because street hawkers sell french fries and sweet potato fries with oil that contains a lot of gutter oil," he said.
These illegal "exports" could also haunt Singaporeans, he added. "If foreign manufacturers use the toxic gutter oil to make food products like love letters and pineappple tarts, Singaporeans who go overseas could eat them or bring them back to Singapore."
People who have information on the unauthorised collection of waste from grease traps should contact NEA on 1800-2255632 or Contact_NEA@nea.gov.sg
Gutter oil reports spark food safety concerns
By Hu Jielan, Channel NewsAsia, 4 Mar 2014
By Hu Jielan, Channel NewsAsia, 4 Mar 2014
Some members of public have raised their concerns over food safety after reports that individuals have been extracting used cooking oil from sewers, and which may have been used by hawkers subsequently.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) said it conducted checks at food shops and food stalls to ascertain that the ingredients used, including cooking oil, are from approved or licensed sources, and actions will be taken against operators who flout the rules.
It added that there have been no previous instances of food shops or food stalls using cooking oil from illegal sources in the past five years.
The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) has said samples of oil and food products from manufacturers are regularly taken for laboratory testing to ensure compliance.
It added that enforcement action will be taken against food manufacturers who do not comply with the requirements and contaminated products will be destroyed.
The safety concerns were sparked when netizens posted several photos that allegedly show staff from a company named "Oil Village", extracting what is known as gutter oil, from grease traps near hawker centres in Bukit Panjang.
But the company is not on a list released by NEA in February of firms that are licensed to open grease traps or deal with waste oil.
NEA said it is investigating the incident.
For the past few months, Madam Valerie Sim eked out a living by collecting waste oil from coffee shops in Jurong.
In Singapore, people have been seen drawing waste oil from grease traps near hawker centres in Yishun and Toa Payoh in the past week.
She would wait until the coffee shops were closing and then siphon the oil from grease traps with a co-worker.
They would open the grease trap lid and pump out the oil into oil tanks. The tanks would then be loaded onto their company lorry and taken to the company to be processed into biodiesel.
Some coffee shops would even collect used oil in 1,000-litre tanks she provided them, she said. They would then call her to pick up the tank when it was nearly full.
Madam Sim, 50, who was paid on a daily basis for her work, said that how much she earned depended on how much oil she took back to the company, Sky-Land (Oils & Fats).
"If there was no oil, there would be no pay. Sometimes, we got very little oil and there would be no need to send it back to the office," she said.
Her work all but dried up when a photograph of her and her co-worker, who wanted to be known only as Mr Ng, siphoning oil at a coffee shop in Jurong West was posted on citizen journalism website Stomp on Feb 12. It sparked speculation among netizens over whether the oil was being reused for cooking.
The concerns were raised following a scandal in China where waste oil was collected, processed and sold as recycled cooking oil.
SIGHTINGS
SIGHTINGS
In Singapore, people have been seen drawing waste oil from grease traps near hawker centres in Yishun and Toa Payoh in the past week.
Madam Sim said that a few weeks after her photograph was published, she and Mr Ng were stopped by officers from national water agency PUB while they were collecting oil at a coffee shop in Jurong.
They were told to report the next day to the main office of the National Environment Agency (NEA) for investigation, which they did.
Madam Sim said that the agency advised her to stop work for the time being.
They also asked her and Mr Ng to report to the NEA office again on Monday.
A check on the NEA website showed that Sky-Land (Oils & Fats) is listed under its list of licensed general waste collectors.
The New Paper contacted the company for comment, but it did not reply by press time.
Madam Sim, a divorcee, said she has not worked for two weeks now and has no income as a result. She has two sons, a 13-year-old secondary school student and a 19-year-old ITE student.
When TNP spoke to her in her one-room flat in Taman Jurong yesterday, Madam Sim said that she was just trying to make a living.
Since the incident, she said she has been trying to find a new job, but to no avail.
"I tried so many times in the last two weeks. It's a struggle to get a job at this age," said Madam Sim, who has only Secondary 3 education.
Without a job and without any income, she has to borrow money from relatives to see her through this period.
The family of three now have plain rice and canned food for their meals.
Recalling the incident, Madam Sim said she felt angry after she found out through a friend that her photo was posted on the Stomp website.
Madam Sim said: "I feel very misunderstood. I would never do it (collecting gutter oil) if the oil is harmful to others.
"I didn't try to steal or do anything wrong. The oil we collected would be turned into biodiesel."
She added: "If people weren't sure about what I was doing, they could have just come up to me and asked." Her co-worker, Mr Ng, 48, also said he felt "very wronged" over the incident.
In an article in The Straits Times on Thursday, NEA said that anyone who illegally disposes of and collects oil can be fined up to $2,000.
As for the sightings of oil extraction from sewers near food outlets in Jurong, NEA said that the oil was to be processed into biodiesel and was not sent to hawkers.
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