Restaurant worker controversially collects and reuses waste cooking oil from trash cans...What's the result of the investigation?
Sep 02, 2025
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According to Chinese media Peng Meen News and Hong Kong media South China Morning Post, a Chinese netizen released a video of a female employee in her 60s at a hot pot restaurant in Chongqing pumping waste cooking oil from a roadside trash can. The employee was wearing the restaurant's uniform and holding a ladle and a white plastic container.
"Who told you to collect the oil?When asked by the videographer, the employee had just started working," he replied vaguely.
The video quickly spread and attracted public attention.
Then, the manager of the restaurant gave an explanation.
He said the woman in the video was a restaurant employee and had been working for only a few days.
She said "The oil she collected was not for use in restaurants, but for sale to sanitation companies that recycle waste oil", he explained.
The employee then wrote in his own hand that "video spread online is a personal act and has nothing to do with the restaurant." The oil was poured in for me to sell it myself."
In the wake of the controversy, a city official confirmed that the restaurant has a record of selling waste cooking oil to a sanitation company that has been officially licensed.
Some explained that the employee saw this and seemed to have tried to collect and sell oil in the same way.
The official said "The employee in the video has been working at the restaurant for only a week, and the record of receiving a total of 40 yuan (about 8,000 won) twice has been confirmed." In addition, there was no direct evidence that the restaurant reused the oil in food cooking," he added.
There was a heated debate online. Netizens say "If the restaurant was planning to reuse oil, it wouldn't have been thrown in the trash in the first place."," he said, claiming that it appeared to be an individual deviation. On the other hand, others argued that "if there is evidence that oil was sold, it's fine, but if not, it's reused, and such restaurants should be closed."
Meanwhile, the controversy has rekindled existing concerns about food safety issues in China.
In July last year, Beijing News shocked the news that the tank lorry, which carried chemicals and fuels, was being used to transport cooking oil and syrup without being properly cleaned. Also in June 2023, a video spread of a dead rat's head in a rice dish served at a university cafeteria in China, prompting national outrage and heightened monitoring of the safety of school meals.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
