Chairman of Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) Abdul Kayum Sarker said a clear and effective guideline is needed for disposing of used cooking oils to ensure food safety as without recycling it may cause many deadly diseases. “The government is working to promulgate policy on trans-fat and use of edible oil in restaurants as well as raise stakeholder awareness on the issue. So, the necessity of formulating guideline is needed for disposing of used cooking oils as it can be used as value added products taking the environmental aspects into account,” he said. He made the comments recently while addressing as the chief guest at the stakeholder dialogue on Policy of Developing Collection System for Used Cooking Oil in Bangladesh, a press release said. Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) and Muenzer Bangla Private Limited- a subsidiary of Muenzer Bioindustrie of Europe organised the virtual event.
Kayum Sarker said, “We will cooperate with scientific and logistic supports to any step of the government which has proper logical, scientific and environment friendly methods and that will come through a proper way,” he said.
The BFSA Chairman said that BFSA is keen to develop a strategy for recycling of used cooking oil so that these oils can be safely used for further value addition and safe waste disposal. He said according to Food Safety Hygiene Regulation 2018, in section 7(a), nobody can use any by-products of food preparation adding that used cooking oil is a kind of waste product at restaurants and food industries, hence it must not be applied for further use as it violates the Food Safety (Hygiene) Regulation, 2018. “In particular, we are interested to implement the testing methods into our regular checks at restaurants and other food business operators aiming to monitor the exact amount of used cooking oil as well as other criteria,” he observed.
“There are many health safety issues regarding the use of used cooking oil. It can be used as value added products taking the environmental aspects into account. There should be guideline from the government for collecting used cooking oil and developing a clear strategy for collecting it,” said BFSA Member Monzur Morshed Ahmed. BUILD CEO Ferdaus Ara Begum called for initiating policy support by the government for formal collection systems of used cooking oil in Bangladesh. “We require a formal policy prescription from our government to transition from existing informal channels for re-used cooking oil towards formal channel for collection of used cooking oil and its recycling,” she added.
Bangladesh imports over three million tonnes of edible oil while only a negligible portion is collected as used cooking oil mostly by informal actors that they sell back to cheaper restaurants. Chief Scientist of Food Analysis & Research Centre for Advanced Research of Sciences Dr. Latiful Bari gave a presentation on “Developing Collection System for Used Cooking Oil in Bangladesh.”
He said reusing cooking oil increases the cholesterol, creates peroxides acid, causes cancer and so on, adding that cooking oil with high percentage of polar compounds is the prime cause for some of the worst diseases.
Head of Corporate Communications & Public Affairs at Muenzer Bioindustry, Austria/Europe Harald Sigl said it is indispensable to have a clear legal regulation on the collection of used cooking oil. “It is an urgent necessity to stop reselling used cooking oil on the foodstuff and product market by law. So it is consequently necessary to create a structured and also regulated collection system”, said Sigl.
“Waste should only be disposed of by certified disposing companies. Particularly, liquid waste may only be handled by those companies who are able to show and prove the whole material flow and can assure that used cooking oil is going through technical applications. This is the only possibility to prevent this poison to go back to the food chain again,” he added.
National Food Safety Consultant of Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) Md. Masud Alam, CEO of HIFS Food also President of BAPA Syed Muhammad Shoaib Hasan, Joint Secretary of Commerce Md. Abdur Rahim, Member of BFSA Monzur Morshed Ahmed, among others, addressed the virtual dialogue.
