DAVAO CITY – Throwing of used cooking oil directly in the kitchen sink may cause flooding which is one of the problems that the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) wants to address.
CENRO acting chief of operations, Dolores Remejo, in a press conference Monday, said that in the absence of heat, the used cooking oil will solidify, causing the clogging of canals and ditches.
She said that a liter of used cooking oil when it solidifies needs 25,000 gallons of water to break it “which is very hard to manage.”
CENRO together with the help of its partners, Japan International Cooperating Agency (JICA) and Biomass Japan is conducting a feasibility study on the possibility of producing biodiesel from the used cooking oil.
Remejo said that 10,000 liters of used cooking oil is needed to test if the project is viable.
Remejo said they already met with the assistant City Administrator, Atty. Tristan Dwight Domingo and partners who are hotel and restaurant owners, together with the 13 pilot barangays who will be participating in the project.
Remejo said the pilot barangays were identified based on its large number of population and the big malls located in the area that are potential sources of used cooking oil.
Remejo also said that the collection of the used cooking oil will not necessarily be done everyday.
“We are encouraging the residents to stock it first in the plastic containers and donate it when it is full,” said Remejo.
She said the barangay hall will serve as the collection point of the donated used cooking oil which will use the plastic containers donated by Biomass Japan.
“When the containers are full, the barangay personnel may call the CENRO’s hotline for them to gather the donated used cooking oil and bring to their motor pool,” she said.
Remejo said that if this project is viable, JICA and Biomass Japan will donate its machine to the city.
The project study ends on February 2016. (davaotoday.com)
