ACO Water Management sales manager Alex Ho (left) demonstrating a solution to manage grease to GEC River Care programme manager Dr K. Kalithasan (right)and other participants of the session at MBPJ.
PETALING Jaya City Council (MBPJ) partnered with The Water Project to promote water sustainability in the city’s F&B industry.
An information session was held at MBPJ headquarters in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, to launch a Best Management Practice Programme for F&B businesses.
The programme attracted 24 attendees including hawkers as well as F&B business owners and staff.
Participants were shown community and nature-based solutions as part of The Water Project, led by Spark Foundation and Global Environment Centre (GEC).
Spark Foundation has been supporting various corporate social responsibility projects since 2007 while GEC, which was set up in 1998, works with global and local partners on environmental issues.
The water sustainability programme aims to increase public awareness of how kitchen scraps and fats can create new resources and sustainable incomes.
As part of the programme, several vendors demonstrated the collection of used cooking oil.
Participants were also shown how fats, oils and grease traps work, and how tools such as water thimbles conserve water.
ACO Water Management and Kualiti Alam Hijau (M) Sdn Bhd demonstrated how fats, oils and grease can be disposed of to prevent wastewater from clogging up drains that can cause odour and flooding.
Kualiti Alam Hijau explained an affordable option of pouring water into your drain and allowing the oil to float above the water, before releasing the water to stream back into rivers as the oil solidifies.
Another way of re-purposing used cooking oil was detailed by Capital Oil & Fats, which collects used oil in households, restaurants, hospitals, malls, factories and hawker stalls.
The company also explained instances where cooking oil is rejected.
“We reject unused oil,” said Capital Oil & Fats marketing manager Thomas Kok.
“Another type of oil we don’t accept is shortening, which is frozen oil.”
MBPJ Health and Environment Department had their health enforcement unit show how they ensured food outlets trapped fats, oils and grease by enforcing shutdowns when necessary.
The unit often advises staff of commercial kitchens to clean grease traps every day.
GEC then demonstrated how an average of 20 litres a day can be saved with water thimbles, a four-holed button-like item which reduces the volume of water exiting faucets and showers.
This can be achieved by removing the washer and inserting the thimble into faucet heads and showerheads.
“It reduces water pressure, resulting in lesser volumes of water being released,” said GEC River Care programme senior programme officer Sathis Venkitasamy.
“Water thimbles are not available in the mass market but you can get them from either GEC or Air Selangor.”
After these demonstrations, the event saw the launch of the Best Practice of Kitchen Waste Management and Water Conservation Competition 2024.
It offers cash prizes totalling RM5,200 and is open to participants of the programme.
MBPJ Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Department director Zain Azly Abdul Rahman said the competition was to encourage Petaling Jaya residents, including F&B premises, to practise environmental sustainability.
