Shanghai has ordered restaurants to sell used cooking oil only to 'regulated teams' in a bid to stamp out 'gutter oil' - reprocessed oil linked to health risks.
A municipal government circular on the supervision and management of used cooking oil, issued on Monday, said all restaurants should sell their waste oil to teams wearing the same uniforms, with the same logos and driving the same type of vehicles.
Restaurants will be forbidden from dumping used oil down drains or passing it on to unlicensed companies or individuals, the circular said.
By the end of next year, it said, all restaurants in the city should have installed oil separating equipment, enabling them to separate oils and water in cooking waste and sell the pure oil to collectors.
At present, some restaurants dump the waste oil into drains, where it is collected by unlicensed workshops, which sell it to restaurants.
The Ministry of Public Security led raids last month that saw 32 people detained for reprocessing and selling more than 100 tonnes of 'gutter oil', smashing a criminal network operating in 14 provinces. The ministry said oil confiscated in the raids contained several kinds of toxins, some of which could cause cancer.