Do you know where used cooking oil or the grease waste from kitchens of our hotels and restaurants go?
Well, there are disposing agents who collect used cooking oil from many eateries, but no one actually knows what the final destination of this toxic matter is.
Indian Oil Corporation has embarked on a social venture by floating a clean drive called RUCO (Repurpose Used-Cooking Oil). Under this, the oil PSU will encourage entrepreneurs to take up biodiesel production from used cooking oil, with a buyback agreement.
“Waste cooking oil is harmful to health, also it is not environment-friendly to dispose of used cooking oil. The best solution is to process it and convert it into biodiesel,” said D.L. Pramodh, IOCL executive director and Karnataka head.
According to him, restaurants that sell a lot of fried food, such as French fries and fried chicken, are very likely to have large quantities of used oil that they need to dispose of. Various vegetable fats and oils, animal fats, waste grease, and edible oil processing waste can be used as feed stock for biodiesel production.
ICO is currently meeting micro, small, medium and large eateries, restaurants and hotels to engage more of them in this campaign. “With the utlitisation of used cooking oil for producing biodiesel, we are aiming to fulfil the vision of ‘waste to wealth’ in India,” Mr. Pramodh said.
