China is a huge country with a booming population. There are millions of people roaming around the city day and night, and street food is one of the most common and cheaply available of foods that the place can offer. However for the food to be cheap, its raw material needs to be cheap as well. Hence, Chinese entrepreneurs came up with a solution of using sewerage waste, animal fats and discarded waste from slaughterhouses and grease traps in order to recycle these and produce usable cooking oil. The process is a step by step one, where a person will pick out the ‘slop’ from a gutter or sewer. This slop will end up at a refinery or processing plant where it is mixed with other oils by the processes of boiling and filtration (TomoNews US). While it helps to make the vendors some amount of profit, it is an equal loss for the consumers. According to studies conducted on this gutter oil, it is said to be loaded with carcinogens and toxins which are a hazard for the human body. However, in spite of this, it makes up for about one-tenth of the cooking oil production in the country (Badakar).
Food safety and manufacture of food items is a major concern in the country, and it is being battled by the country’s ethical mechanism in order to end this food safety crisis. There have been police crackdowns and raids on various places in the major provinces of the country and in industries which claim to be producing gutter oil. The oil has a foul smell and a darker color as compared to other cooking oils, but this is changed after the processing and filtration. Although newer technological facilities such as changing the acid value of oil and coloration techniques can help to make gutter oil seem normal, various tests can help to declare this oil as a gutter oil (Badkar). The supply and manufacture of gutter oil is illegal, and it is punishable by law to get involved in this business. Moreover, it is up to the food regulation authorities to keep a check on the kind of oil being supplied by conducting raids and holding inspections (Badkar).
Several methods have been employed to tackle the issue. Tracking and locating the areas of production as well as the restaurants using gutter oil is an important step. Resultantly, Beijing has installed about 60,000 ‘electronic eyes’ or monitoring systems to check how restaurants deal with the kitchen waste and where this waste ends up at (Jin, Lu, and Tu 142). In June 2012, Shanghai used the oil-water separators and GPS to trace and follow the gutter oil transport. An additional control was the invention by the University of Shanghai Science and Technology, which came up with a device that used terahertz waves to detect gutter oil within less than a minute of exposure. The effectiveness of these methods is scientific and helpful in distinguishing which oil is safe and which isn’t, especially in a country as diverse as China (Jin, Lu, and Tu 143-144).
The next method was taking it on municipality level where the central administration came into view, and local governments ordered the proper and well-monitored disposal of waste products in the vicinity. Since the year 2009, food safety violations have become stricter. The violations of the protocol of waste disposal were met with fines- ranging from ¥5000 to ¥50,000 (Beech). Moreover, criminal charges were legally imposed on the people using gutter oil (Beech). Recently, a Chinese gutter oil manufacturer was sentenced life imprisonment for the act and his partner in the company, a man of political affiliation, was stripped of his political rights and his assets were seized as well. Such measures are a source of deterrence because they can prove to people that even the influential citizens driving the production of gutter oil are not safe from the clenches of law. There have also been propositions regarding seizure and immediate sentencing to death of all those involved in this foul business (Beech).
Presently, the situation is widely recognized, and it is trying to be controlled. There are massive arrests and those directly involved are sentenced to death in the court hearings. This is because, in a country so huge, there are millions of people involved in its production, and that too, from the lower classes. Hence, it is difficult to control and catch them all, yet those involved are dealt with an iron fist and receive their due punishment. The main issue is that China has no proper scale of defining which cooking oil and edible and which isn’t. This became one of the reasons why people began using gutter oil in the first place. While other solutions are effective, this food crisis will end with the production of safer and less expensive cooking oil and more public awareness about gutter oil.
Work Cited
Badkar, Mamta. “This video of Chinese street food made from ‘gutter oil’ is the most disgusting
thing you will see all day.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 29 Oct. 2013. Web. 28 Aug. 2016.
Beech, Hannah. Is a suspended death sentence enough for a Chinese “gutter oil” dealer? |
TIME.com. TIME.com, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Aug. 2016.
Jin, Yiying, Mingming Lu, and Qingshi Tu. The gutter oil issue in China. 142-149. Aug. 2013.
Web. 28 Aug. 2016.
TomoNews US. “China Gutter Oil: Disgusting Recycled Oil and Sewage Is Used to Cook
Chinese Street Food - TomoNews.” YouTube. YouTube, 4 Feb. 2016. Web. 28 Aug. 2016.
