Gutter oil
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Gutter oil, trench oil, or sewer oil (, or ) is a Chinese slang term for recycled oil. It can be used to describe the illicit practice of restaurants reusing
cooking oil Cooking oil is plant, animal, or synthetic liquid fat used in frying, baking, and other types of cooking. It is also used in food preparation and flavoring not involving heat, such as salad dressings and bread dips, and may be called edible oil. ...
that has already been cooked with longer than safety codes permit. It can also be used to describe the reprocessing of rancid
yellow grease Yellow grease, also termed used cooking oil (UCO), used vegetable oil (UVO), recycled vegetable oil, or waste vegetable oil (WVO), is recovered from businesses and industry that use the oil for cooking. It is used to feed livestock, and to manufa ...
collected from sources such as restaurant fryers and
slaughterhouse waste An animal product is any material derived from the body of an animal. Examples are fat, flesh, blood, milk, eggs, and lesser known products, such as isinglass and rennet. Animal by-products, as defined by the USDA, are products harvested or man ...
, or putrified
brown grease A grease trap (also known as grease interceptor, grease recovery device, grease capsule and grease converter) is a plumbing device (a type of trap) designed to intercept most greases and solids before they enter a wastewater disposal system. Co ...
from
grease trap A grease trap (also known as grease interceptor, grease recovery device, grease capsule and grease converter) is a plumbing device (a type of trap) designed to intercept most greases and solids before they enter a wastewater disposal system. Co ...
s.Alexa Olese
"Gutter Oil: China Sounds Alarm Over Filthy Cooking Oil"
. 20 July 2010


History

The first documented case of gutter oil in Taiwan was reported in 1985. In a subsequent investigation, 22 people were arrested for involvement in a recycling oil ring over 10 years based in Taipei. The worst offender was sentenced to 7 years in prison. The first documented case of gutter oil in mainland China was reported in 2000, when a
street vendor A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported; the term is roughly synonymous with costermonger or peddler. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells inexpensive goods, handicrafts, or food items. Whether stationa ...
was found to be selling oil obtained from restaurant garbage disposals.He Jiangyong and Liu Ziqian
"Sick Slick"
, ''NewsChina Magazine'', December 2011.
It was estimated in 2011 that about one-tenth of the oil used by restaurants in China was gutter oil. As Feng Ping of the China Meat Research Center has said: "The illegal oil shows no difference in appearance and indicators after refining and purification, because the law breakers are skillful at coping with the established standards." Some street
vendor In a supply chain, a vendor, supplier, provider or a seller, is an enterprise that contributes goods or services. Generally, a supply chain vendor manufactures inventory/stock items and sells them to the next link in the chain. Today, these terms ...
s and
restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...
s in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
are reported to have illegally used recycled oil unfit for human consumption to cook food, leading to a crackdown against such establishments by the
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
government.Tian Peng, Sun Licha
"Cooking Oil's Final Destination"
''The Economic Observer'' 14 November 2011
Mark Astle
Chinese officials arrest more than 100 in rotten meat-based 'gutter oil' crackdown
''Food Quality News'', 5 April 2012

''China Daily'', 24 May 2012.
In September 2012, an ongoing investigation into the suspected use of gutter oil as a raw material in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry was revealed. A scandal involving 240 tons of gutter oil in Taiwan affecting hundreds of companies and thousands of eateries, some of which may have been exported overseas, broke in September 2014. In 2018 researchers worked on identifying different components in gutter oil using 1H NMR (proton nuclear magnetic resonance), MALDI-MS (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry) and HPLC (high-performance liquid chromatography).


Regulations and law enforcement

Chinese law states that industrial-grade animal fat is not allowed for use in food products because it does not meet basic hygiene standards and may contain high levels of potentially toxic contaminants. The national and local governments are researching ways to test and identify gutter oil but there were no nationwide standards in place to help with this process. The government is looking into methods that rely on technical equipment as well as on-site instant tests to screen suspect oil. There are five proposed tests for gutter oil but each has failed to accurately detect it. Due to China's vast industry of factories involved with legal waste oil processing to create products like plastics, rubbers, fuels, soaps, etc., there have been abundant rumors and allegations about unscrupulous middlemen selling gutter oil for cooking and frying. However, it remains difficult to prove and prosecute such profiteers. Food safety articles funded by PRC provincial science grants attribute continued difficulties in regulatory enforcement to the decentralized nature of the logistics chain, inadequate national infrastructure for disposal/recycling, and frequent innovations in visually and chemically disguising gutter oil. In August and September 2011, the Beijing city government passed two new sets of regulations. The first was "On Accelerating the City's Food Waste and Waste Oil Recycling Program". Its goals are to increase daily
food waste Food loss and waste is food that is not eaten. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption. Overall, about o ...
processing to 2,200 tons by 2012 and to 2,900 tons by 2015. Additionally, the intent of the regulations is to create a system that "should be a unified, standardized, and orderly processing of waste oil collection and improvement of the transportation system". The second set of regulations by the city of Beijing, called the "Beijing Municipal Solid Waste Regulations", was passed in September 2011. The regulations specifically target the two sources of gutter oil: food waste and used oil. The central government intends for these two sets of regulations to serve as national examples, yet wants every municipality nationally to find their own solutions to the food waste and gutter oil problem. A nationwide campaign was set in motion in August 2011 to crack down on the widespread production and selling of gutter oil. The law enforcement campaign uncovered 100 gutter oil manufacturers and arrested more than 800 people allegedly involved in the production and sale of gutter oil. In April 2012 another crackdown occurred with an additional 100 arrests made and 13 illegal workshops closed down across four provinces. According to a notice released jointly by the
Supreme People's Court The Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China (SPC; ) is the highest court of the People's Republic of China. It hears appeals of cases from the high people's courts and is the trial court for cases about matters of national ...
, the
Supreme People's Procuratorate The Supreme People's Procuratorate () is the highest national agency responsible for legal prosecution and investigation in the People's Republic of China. Conceived initially in 1949 as the Supreme People's Prosecutor's Office, the agency was r ...
and the Ministry of Public Security, the
death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
will now be an option when prosecuting more serious cases of gutter oil manufacturing in the country. More severe punishments will also be given out to government and public officials who fail to properly address matters related to gutter oil. The State Council said inspectors would target edible oil trade fairs and wholesale markets and called for inspections of oil being used at restaurants, school cafeterias, work canteens and kitchens at construction sites. The State Council also stated that businesses that use recycled oil would be forced to close temporarily or lose their business license while peddlers who sell the oil could be criminally prosecuted. In October 2013, a man from eastern China's Jiangsu Province was sentenced to life imprisonment for profiting heavily from making and selling gutter oil.


Production and distribution

Entire illicit supply chains dedicated to collecting, processing, and reselling gutter oil have been discovered by regulators in China. Multiple low-end restaurants in China have been found to cook with gutter oil. Additionally, in 2012, the Chinese government accused a Chinese pharmaceutical company of using gutter oil as a precursor for the manufacturing of
cephalosporin The cephalosporins (sg. ) are a class of β-lactam antibiotics originally derived from the fungus ''Acremonium'', which was previously known as ''Cephalosporium''. Together with cephamycins, they constitute a subgroup of β-lactam antibiotics ...
antibiotics. Collected
waste oil Waste oil is defined as any petroleum-based or synthetic oil that, through contamination, has become unsuitable for its original purpose due to the presence of impurities or loss of original properties. Differentiating between "waste oil" and "use ...
is sold to local workshops or small factories for cleaning and packaging. When sold to workshops it is often transported by bicycle mounted collectors; afterwards, the oil is held in 200-liter barrels at the workshops until it is processed.Alexa Olese
"Gutter Oil: China Sounds Alarm Over Filthy Cooking Oil"
''Huffington Post'', 20 July 2010
On other occasions the oil goes to industrial cooking oil refineries for further processing before it finally reaches its end purpose. Reprocessing of used cooking oil is often very rudimentary; techniques include
filtration Filtration is a physical separation process that separates solid matter and fluid from a mixture using a ''filter medium'' that has a complex structure through which only the fluid can pass. Solid particles that cannot pass through the filter ...
, boiling, refining, and the removal of some adulterants. It is then packaged and resold as a cheaper alternative to normal cooking oil. Another version of gutter oil uses discarded animal parts, animal fat and skins, internal organs, and expired or otherwise low-quality meat, which is then cooked in large vats to extract the oil. Some lower-market restaurants have long-term purchase agreements with oil recyclers for selling their used oil. Low-end restaurants and street vendors are the biggest end users of gutter oil, as they operate with lower profit margins than bigger restaurants. Oil is a large kitchen supply cost for some restaurants, so obtaining cheaper oil can allow a marginal restaurant to reduce its overall expenses. Chinese food is generally heavily dependent on oil due to most foods being fried, so cheaper meal prices for many price-sensitive consumers are possible if gutter oil is used instead of virgin oil.Xinhua News Agency
Our kitchens must be freed from gutter oil
14 September 2011.
The situation becomes more serious because it is hard to distinguish reprocessed gutter oil from legitimate oil.
Bleach Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color (whitening) from a fabric or fiber or to clean or to remove stains in a process called bleaching. It often refers specifically, to ...
is used to transform gutter oil's dark color into a more natural-looking one, and
alkali In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a basic, ionic salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of a ...
additives are used to neutralize the abnormal pH caused by high concentrations of
animal fats Animal fats and oils are lipids derived from animals: oils are liquid at room temperature, and fats are solid. Chemically, both fats and oils are composed of triglycerides. Although many animal parts and secretions may yield oil, in commercial p ...
. Used kitchen oil can be purchased for between $859 and $937 per ton, while the cleaned and refined product can sell for $1,560 per ton.Li L
In the Tank, Not on the Table
''The Beijing Review'' 17 November 2011
Thus there is great economic incentive to produce and sell gutter oil.


Health effects

Gutter oil has been shown to be toxic causing
diarrhea Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin wi ...
and abdominal pain. There are also reports that long-term consumption of the oil can lead to stomach and liver cancer.Austin Ramzy
China Cracks Down on "Gutter Oil," a Substance Even Worse Than its Name
''Time'', 13 September 2011.
Testing of some samples of gutter oil has revealed traces of
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon A polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) is a class of organic compounds that is composed of multiple aromatic rings. The simplest representative is naphthalene, having two aromatic rings and the three-ring compounds anthracene and phenanthrene. ...
s (PAH): dangerous organic pollutants capable of causing cancer with long-term consumption. There is also potential for gutter oil to contain
aflatoxin Aflatoxins are various poisonous carcinogens and mutagens that are produced by certain molds, particularly ''Aspergillus'' species. The fungi grow in soil, decaying vegetation and various staple foodstuffs and commodities such as hay, sweetcorn ...
s, highly carcinogenic compounds produced by certain molds. Zeng Jing of the Guangdong Armed Police Hospital said of gutter oil: "Animal and vegetable fat in refined waste oil will undergo rancidity, oxidation and decomposition after contamination. It will cause indigestion,
insomnia Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder in which people have trouble sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, ...
, liver discomfort and other symptoms." Due to rumours and the fear of Chinese customers of restaurants using gutter oil in their cooking, it has been reported that some people in China have resorted to bringing their own cooking oil with them from home into restaurants and instructing chefs to use their home-brought oil in their kitchen when preparing their food instead of the restaurant's own cooking oil.


Legal disposal and reuse of waste oil

Gutter oil refineries are usually hidden inside legitimate producers that sell the processed oil for use in the chemical or energy industries. However, such refiners can also have illegal side business, as the prices attained by selling it as cooking oil are much higher than if it is sold to the chemical or energy industries.
Yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the R ...
and brown grease typical of gutter oil are acceptable raw feedstocks for products not intended for human consumption, such as plastics, rubber, rooftops, soap, cosmetics, and bio-fuel. In the city of Shanghai, it was reported that over 2,000 buses ran on biodiesel that was made from gutter oil, and many gas stations in Shanghai offered gasoline that was produced in part from gutter oil. Sustainable utilization of gutter oil for biofuel production is being explored using different chemical and enzymatic methods. Gutter oil has also been used outside of China as well. For example, in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
,
fatberg A fatberg is a rock-like mass of waste matter in a sewer system formed by the combination of flushed non-biodegradable solids, such as wet wipes, and fat, oil and grease (FOG) deposits. The handling of FOG waste and the buildup of its deposits ...
s that were dug out of sewers in cities like
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
were later reported to be processed to produce biofuel.


See also

*
Food safety incidents in China Food safety incidents in China have received increased international media scrutiny following the reform and opening of the country, and its joining the World Trade Organization. Urban areas have become more aware of food safety as their incomes ri ...
* Food safety incidents in Taiwan


References

{{Reflist Health in China Food safety scandals Recycling Cooking oils 2014 health disasters 2014 in China Adulteration Economic history of China Scandals in China