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span class="inline inline-left">Recycling?: A woman pours waste cooking oil from a plastic bucket into water bottles for resale. A lack of regulation on waste oil disposal allows for the compromised substance to damage human health and the environment.More than 15 cubic meters of used cooking oil is dumped into Bali’s rivers, open lands and waste centers every week.

More worryingly, it is also sold to middlemen who clean the used oil of solids to be resold to warungs and street food stalls.

According to Caritas country representative Thorsten Reckerzugl, the release of used cooking oil into the environment can have disastrous impacts, while consuming used oil is believed to increase the risk of cancer, stroke, heart disease, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Caritas, an international social support foundation, is injecting almost US$1 million in donor funds in an attempt to reduce the volumes of waste oil being sold to food vendors and released into the environment. Caritas is working with hotels and restaurants to recycle the oil at a planned Denpasar plant into biofuel that will then be available for hotel and restaurant generators and shuttle vehicles.

“The disposal of waste cooking oil is very diverse. There is not a structured operation to dispose of cooking oil — there is no government regulation for its disposal.

“Originally, we thought the oil was being poured down sinks and from there into the environment. However, when we started the study we found oil disposed of into the environment, such as in rivers and landfills, accounted for not more than 30 percent.

From research with hotels and restaurants we found 70 percent is reused as cooking oil. It is not toxic, but it is not appropriate for human consumption,” said Reckerzugl.

He explains that the chemical structure of cooking oil undergoes changes during heating and these changes can lead to deadly diseases such as cancer.

“It’s not going to cause diseases if eaten just once, but if people frequently eat foods cooked in old oil it increases the risks and this has been proven,” says Reckerzugl.

According to Dr. I Wayan Weta of Sanglah Hospital’s department of nutrition, it is not only the chemical changes in old oil that is harmful to human health, but also the additives used to clean old oil.

“Used cooking oil causes mostly degenerative diseases such as cancers and cardiovascular diseases, but also toxic substances are used to make the oil clear. Some of these substances are chlorine bleach and alum. Also used is the organic substance mengkudu or mulberry. Certainly, chlorine is toxic,” says Weta.  

For Caritas, having isolated the problem of waste cooking oil being resold for consumption or dumped meant seeking solutions.

The organization has over the past year met with hundreds of restaurants and hotels seeking support for the recycling of their waste oil into biofuel.

So far 86 hotels and restaurants in Bali are on board and McDonald’s is thought to be close to signing on to the project as well.

“We have signed agreements on collecting waste cooking oil to be recycled as biofuel with 86 restaurants and hotels. That is 4.7 cubic meters of waste cooking oil weekly. We have had meetings with McDonald’s and an agreement with them is in process. Kentucky Fried Chicken is yet to come on board,” says Reckerzugl, adding that the break even volume of waste cooking oil needed for the project is 7 cubic meters per week and the project cannot begin without commitments from hotels and restaurants that meet that volume.

Some of Bali’s leading hotels and restaurants, including Banyan Tree and Ayana Resort and Spa Bali, have signed pre-agreements on the Caritas oil recycling project in an effort to further reduce their environmental footprint.

Ayana general manager Charles de Foucault says he leapt at the opportunity to do more to reduce his hotel’s impact on the environment through recycling that hotel’s cooking oil into biofuel.

“We have signed a pre-agreement as the project has not yet been launched. Ayana is very focused on the environment. Every hotel claims to be focused on the environment, but hotels in general can do more. When this project came up we signed up straight away. There is so much waste that goes into the environment with little regulation and this is also a health issue. This is going to hit a little bit, but we as an organization and management are concerned with health and safety and the environment,” says de Foucault.

Despite currently having 86 hotels, restaurants and partners with Kuoni Travel and non-profit organization myclimate signed off on the oil recycling project, Caritas’ Reckerzugl stresses that more need to come on board for the project to be viable. He hopes the project can begin operation by May of 2012 with a handover to the community of the project by August of the same year.

“We won’t order the waste oil processing system [to create biofuel] before we get the amount of hotels and restaurants needed on board. We need a minimum of 1 cubic meter of waste oil daily to cover operational costs,” says Reckerzugl.

He explains many hotels and restaurants are still reluctant to join the program as kitchens have long sold waste oil.

“We need to also educate people not to sell this waste oil or to take it home to cook with as this is a health issue, as well as an environmental issue,” says Reckerzugl.