Grease trapped

SINGAPORE - For the past few months, Madam Valerie Sim eked out a living by collecting waste oil from coffee shops in Jurong.

She would wait until the coffee shops were closing and then siphon the oil from grease traps with a co-worker.

They would open the grease trap lid and pump out the oil into oil tanks. The tanks would then be loaded onto their company lorry and taken to the company to be processed into biodiesel.

Some coffee shops would even collect used oil in 1,000-litre tanks she provided them, she said. They would then call her to pick up the tank when it was nearly full.

Madam Sim, 50, who was paid on a daily basis for her work, said that how much she earned depended on how much oil she took back to the company, Sky-Land (Oils & Fats).

"If there was no oil, there would be no pay. Sometimes, we got very little oil and there would be no need to send it back to the office," she said.

Her work all but dried up when a photograph of her and her co-worker, who wanted to be known only as Mr Ng, siphoning oil at a coffee shop in Jurong West was posted on citizen journalism website Stomp on Feb 12. It sparked speculation among netizens over whether the oil was being reused for cooking.

The concerns were raised following a scandal in China where waste oil was collected, processed and sold as recycled cooking oil.

SIGHTINGS

In Singapore, people have been seen drawing waste oil from grease traps near hawker centres in Yishun and Toa Payoh in the past week.

Madam Sim said that a few weeks after her photograph was published, she and Mr Ng were stopped by officers from national water agency PUB while they were collecting oil at a coffee shop in Jurong.

They were told to report the next day to the main office of the National Environment Agency (NEA) for investigation, which they did.

Madam Sim said that the agency advised her to stop work for the time being.

They also asked her and Mr Ng to report to the NEA office again on Monday.

A check on the NEA website showed that Sky-Land (Oils & Fats) is listed under its list of licensed general waste collectors.

The New Paper contacted the company for comment, but it did not reply by press time.

Madam Sim, a divorcee, said she has not worked for two weeks now and has no income as a result. She has two sons, a 13-year-old secondary school student and a 19-year-old ITE student.

When TNP spoke to her in her one-room flat in Taman Jurong yesterday, Madam Sim said that she was just trying to make a living.

Since the incident, she said she has been trying to find a new job, but to no avail.

"I tried so many times in the last two weeks. It's a struggle to get a job at this age," said Madam Sim, who has only Secondary 3 education.

Without a job and without any income, she has to borrow money from relatives to see her through this period.

The family of three now have plain rice and canned food for their meals.

Recalling the incident, Madam Sim said she felt angry after she found out through a friend that her photo was posted on the Stomp website.

Madam Sim said: "I feel very misunderstood. I would never do it (collecting gutter oil) if the oil is harmful to others.

"I didn't try to steal or do anything wrong. The oil we collected would be turned into biodiesel."

She added: "If people weren't sure about what I was doing, they could have just come up to me and asked." Her co-worker, Mr Ng, 48, also said he felt "very wronged" over the incident.

In an article in The Straits Times on Thursday, NEA said that anyone who illegally disposes of and collects oil can be fined up to $2,000.

jaslim@sph.com.sg

As for the sightings of oil extraction from sewers near food outlets in Jurong, NEA said that the oil was to be processed into biodiesel and was not sent to hawkers.

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