Aurangabad restaurants, hotels asked to sell used oil

Aurangabad: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has appealed to the large-scale cooking oil consumers to give away the used oil to a firm that would use it to manufacture biodiesel.

The FDA’s instruction follows the central government’s policy to boost biodiesel manufacturing in the country. FDA officials cited communication received from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

Its official website said: “Using the same cooking oil for repeated frying has adverse health effects. This used cooking oil is also a potential feedstock for manufacturing biodiesel. Therefore, the FSSAI has launched Repurpose Used Cooking Oil (RUCO) – an ecosystem to enable the collection and conversion of used cooking oil to biodiesel.”

As per the order issued by FDA assistant commissioner M D Shah, all establishments, which are left with more than 50 litre of cooking oil per day, are supposed to maintain a record of their consumption. They are supposed to sell this used oil to the government-appointed agency. The order covers all restaurants, hotels, FBOs, sweet and farsan shops.

The press release read: “The Cosmy group of industries having its office at Azam Colony, has been appointed to collect the used oil from Aurangabad district.”

Agency’s Umar Jaidi told TOI, “To begin with, we will be purchasing at Rs 21 per litre. Depending on the quantity of used oil provided by food business operators, the charges may vary.” He said the oil would be sent to a biodiesel manufacturing plant at Sirohi in Rajasthan.

FSSAI’s RUCO-related website said: “During frying, several properties of oil are altered. Total polar compounds (TPC) are formed on repeated frying. The toxicity of these compounds is associated with several diseases such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, liver diseases. Therefore, it is essential to monitor the quality of vegetable oils during frying. In order to safeguard health, FSSAI has fixed a limit for TPC at 25%, beyond which, the vegetable oil shall not be used.”