Food waste going down the drain

A restaurant owner in Jalan Kelang Lama trying to clean the drain after he was informed that his workers were dumping gunk into the drains.

IT HAS been exactly two years since Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) made it compulsory for all traders and business that prepare food in their premises, to install grease traps or have their licences revoked.

But a check by StarMetro at 10 popular food outlets in the city showed that despite installing the grease traps, the drains are still clogged, stagnant with gunk accumulated from food waste, detergent, oil, grease, lard and chemical used to clean and prepare food.

In some areas, the layer of fat, oil and grease (FOG) has become so thick that the drains looked like it was filled with curried jelly, and water is not able to flow anywhere.

After observing the restaurants for a while, we discovered that the restaurant owners, despite having installed the grease traps as per DBKL by-law, still continued to wash and prepare food outside their premises.

Workers were seen peeling, washing, cutting vegetables as well as meat outside the kitchen area at the back of the restaurant. Some squatting on the sidewalk discarding everything, including leftover curries and beverage into the drains.

At some eateries, the grease traps had become blocked with an accumulation of FOG and were not functioning properly due to lack of maintenance.

When we approached the owner of one particular restaurant in Bukit Bintang to enquire about the grease trap, the owner pointed at a device installed at the sink. It was a small one that was meant for household kitchens, not for restaurants.

“We clean it every week,’’ he said, referring to the grease trap.

Kalithasan showing a regular grease trap that is meant for households.

When we pointed out that the washing was meant to be done in the kitchen and not the back area, the owner replied: “We follow the law. They (DBKL) asked us to install grease trap and we did,’’ he said, adding that he had not broken any law.

It was a similar scene at restaurants in Jalan Mega Mendung, off Jalan Kelang Lama.

The drains in the entire business area were clogged with FOG.

Perhaps the owners thought that their responsibility ended with installing the grease trap, but if everyone did only that, our streams, lakes and rivers are ultimately going to die.

Irregular maintenance

“That’s the problem,’’ said Global Environment Centre’s (GEC) river care programme coordinator Dr K. Kalithasan.

“These business owners feel that they have followed the law, but there is no follow-up action by the authorities on whether these premises continuously followed the rules.

The law does not specify the size of a grease trap that a particular restaurant must install. By right, the bigger the restaurant, the bigger the grease trap should be.

“Restaurant owners are supposed to connect the wash basins to the septic system instead of discharging the waste directly into the drain.

This photo sums it all. Taken at the back of a restaurant in Jalan Mega Mendung in Jalan Kelang Lama. It shows restaurant workers washing and peeling vegetables outside and throwing everything into the drain.

“So if they wash or pour out oil and any organic waste into the wash basin, the waste will flow through a strainer, into the grease trap, and will flow into the sewerage system.

But that is not the case at many restaurants. Most restaurants are discharging the waste, oil and lard into the drains, which eventually end up in our lakes and rivers.

Kalithasan said that once the gunk get into the rivers, the chemicals from all the organic matter would eventually kill aquatic life in the river.

Chemical waste from factories and agriculture mixed with organic waste from kitchens can in some cases, when combined, become lethal and be detrimental to the environment.

“When one aquatic life is harmed, it will destroy the entire food chain,’’ he explained.

“An example is the Kelana Jaya lake. More than 10 years ago, the water in the lake had become stagnant with gunk from restaurants and businesses flowing into it via the storm drains. The pollution was so severe that even touching it was said to be harmful.’’

While GEC started rehabilitating the river as early as 2002, we managed to restore it from class V (very polluted) to Class III (Class III and Class IV are not suitable for body contact, while Class IIB is suitable for body contact and recreational usage).

“The Petaling Jaya City Council started making the installation of grease traps in restaurants mandatory, but there was no guidelines as to the type and size of grease traps to be installed.

“The issue of maintenance was never taken into account, and even today MBPJ is still having problems,’’ said Kalithasan.

In fact, all local authorities in Selangor and DBKL are grappling with the issue.

Over in Kuala Lumpur, the Federal Government’s RM4bil River of Life (RoL) project is in full swing, and the river cleaning phase aims to improve the water from the current Class III and V, to Class IIB, by 2020.

“It will not be successful if restaurants continue to dump gunk into the drains. While we are trying to educate people to love their rivers, I think that maybe people should start loving their drains first, after all it is where everything begins,’’ Kalithasan said.