Gan Jia En, Kheng Yau Dong, Wang Heqiao, Tan Desheng
Academic Advisor: Dr. Florence Ng
Cooking Oil is an essential ingredient that is commonly used in food production globally, which in turn leads to a substantial consumption of cooking oil around the world. For instance, in 2016, 25 kg of edible vegetable oil was consumed per capita in China (Research and Markets, 2018). Due to the significant consumption of cooking oil, a substantial amount of used cooking oil (UCO) will be produced. Thus, our project aims to explore the idea of recycling of UCO by using it to produce soaps. Using UCO from RVRC Dining Hall, we have produced cold-process bar soap and liquid soap in a soap workroom of a local company known as Sugar and Spice. Followed by this is an interview with the dining hall cleaners to enquire about the commonly found stains on the dining hall table. We gathered that the common stains are usually drinks and sauces. We then decided to test out the UCO soaps on different type of sauces instead of drinks as sauces are more oily and hence is more difficult to be cleaned. From our evaluation, it was observed that the liquid soap and bar soap were reasonably effective in cleaning the stains. In particular, the cleaning effect of the liquid soap was comparable to a commercial kitchen cleaner which served as the control. We recommend that further research should be done to investigate the feasibility of producing the UCO soaps in a larger scale to augment its benefits towards the environment.
Keywords: Culture and Lifestyle Trends, Responsible Consumption, Food waste, Food