Waste oil and kitchen waste must be declared and brought under control to strictly prevent it from flowing back to dining tables through trash bins
The total amount of waste cooking oil produced by the restaurant industry across Taiwan, China comes to about 60,000 to 80,000 tonnes a year, but there are no clear statistics on the total volume of food scraps. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Ministry of Health and Welfare has drafted the "Draft Regulations Governing the Reuse of Business Waste from the Restaurant Industry," requiring the more than 85,000 restaurants, buffet eateries, fast food outlets and other restaurant operators across Taiwan, China to sign contracts if they want to entrust food scraps to other operators for composting or animal feed, or to reuse waste cooking oil to make soap and the like, and to keep proper management records of quantities and flow, retained for 5 years for inspection by health authorities.
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is meanwhile amending its regulations in step, abolishing the provision that exempts restaurant operators from reporting food scraps. That is to say, in the past restaurant operators only had to report their food scraps when they entrusted them to waste haulers for disposal; when they entrusted them to livestock farms and other units for reuse as animal feed, they did not need to report the total volume, creating a loophole in total-volume control. This will be closed in future, and the new policy is expected to take effect as early as September.
Reuse of food scraps and waste oil: methods must be limited
The Ministry of Health and Welfare's FDA gave advance notice the day before yesterday of the "Draft Regulations Governing the Reuse of Business Waste from the Restaurant Industry," specifying the scope for reuse of food scraps and waste cooking oil from restaurant operators. Food scraps may be entrusted to poultry and livestock manure composting facilities, livestock farms and other institutions for use as animal feed, organic fertiliser and so on, while waste cooking oil may be entrusted to relevant factories for reuse as soap ingredients, biodiesel ingredients and so on.
The draft specifies that before food scraps and waste cooking oil are entrusted to composting facilities, livestock farms and other reuse institutions or to waste haulers, a contract must first be signed setting out in detail the type, composition and quantity of the business waste entrusted, and the relevant documents must be properly kept for more than 5 years for verification. In case of violation, health authorities may in future impose a fine of 6,000 to 30,000 yuan under the Waste Disposal Act. All these reuse methods require a contract with the relevant institution and an application to the EPA.
Apart from the scope specified in the draft, if restaurant operators in future want to put food scraps or waste cooking oil to other uses, they must first submit an application. That is to say, for example, if food scraps are to be used for biogas power generation, the relevant documents must first be submitted to the FDA and approved after review.
In addition, restaurant operators with capital of more than 25 million or more and chain-scale operations that want to compost their own food scraps or turn waste cooking oil into soap themselves must first draw up a "Business Waste Disposal Plan," which may be reused only after approval by the EPA.
From food to "waste": the EPA makes reporting mandatory
If restaurant operators do not intend to reuse their food scraps and waste cooking oil but simply throw them away as waste, Hsu Chao-kai, deputy head of the FDA's Food Division, said that under the current Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, operators must keep proper records in accordance with the Good Hygiene Practice (GHP) principles and the "Food Safety Monitoring Plan" and retain them at the plant for inspection.
That is to say, the FDA will not proactively investigate the total volume of food scraps from the current more than 85,000 restaurant operators. Hsu Chao-kai said that the business waste that leaves restaurant operators falls within the EPA's jurisdiction, and whether restaurant operators must in future report their food scraps mandatorily is not something the FDA can decide.
However, at the end of last year a livestock farm in Pingtung County was found to have taken in food scraps from a channel distributor and, after processing it into food, sold it to buffet eateries, bento shops and other restaurant operators. If the FDA cannot truly grasp the total volume and flow, how will it prevent similar incidents in future?
In response, Hsu Chao-kai said that waste such as expired food and food scraps should never re-enter the food chain in the first place, and restaurant operators should manage it well at source. The FDA will in future strengthen oversight in this area, requiring operators to truthfully record the volume and flow of business waste handled in their Food Safety Monitoring Plans, but at the same time the EPA must also strengthen its management of disposal institutions or reuse institutions, so as to effectively prevent food scraps from re-entering the food chain.
The EPA, for its part, is amending its regulations. Chiang Kuo-tse, deputy director of the Waste Management Division, said that in the past restaurant operators only had to report their food scraps when they entrusted them to waste haulers for disposal; when they entrusted them to livestock farms and other units for reuse as animal feed, they did not need to report the total volume, creating a loophole in total-volume control. The regulations are now being amended with a view to removing the "food scraps reporting exemption" for restaurant operators, taking effect as early as September.