The Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) has advocated the proper handling and management of cooking oil and oily waste as part of efforts to achieve a clean and beautiful environment.
Speaking at a sensitisation programme on sustainable management of cooking oil at an event organised by the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency in conjunction with Ororo Management in Lagos, the agency’s general manager, Dr Babatunde Ajayi, lamented the high level of environmental degradation caused by improper management of cooking oil.
Ajayi said, “We are having an advocacy event to discuss the importance of proper management and recycling of cooking and waste oil in Lagos State, a mega city with over 20 million people. We use a huge volume, with each using as much as 15 to 20 kg of cooking oil per year, and that generates at the very least five to 10 kg of used oil per person, which, if not properly managed, ends in the wrong places.”
He said waste oil, when not properly managed, will damage the waterway, and tadpoles that used to reside in drainage systems in the state had been extinguished by improper management of oil waste.
Ajayi said, “Now everybody pours anything into the gutters. I can remember the last time I saw any tadpoles in those gutters.
We saw them as tiny fish. But we don’t have that anymore because of the oil coating in the drainages. That is a threat to our environment, and the last thing that will happen is contributions to emissions.
“What we are doing is to make sure we manage the value chain properly. This is the series’s first edition, and we will deliberate in passing the message. We have critical stakeholders who cook for many people, people who cook on a large scale, and who attend the programme. As an EPA, our responsibility is to protect the environment first and also protect the health of the people.’’
Ajayi also pointed out that cooking oil, if not correctly managed, damages people’s health, adding that it is a precursor to cancer ailments as it is acidic, loses flavour and begins to foam when the oil is used after it has been heated by fire several times.
Also, Oluwakemi Areola, the PR consultant for Ororo Waste Management, said it’s unhealthy to continue reusing cooking oil.
She said recycling the used cooking oil is financially rewarding and creates cosmetic products.