The latest dispatch in China’s food safety wars, from AFP:
China said Tuesday it had arrested 32 people over the sale of cooking oil made from leftovers taken from gutters, in the latest food safety scandal to hit the country.
The sting operation comes more than a year after state media revealed that up to one-tenth of cooking oil used in China was made from waste oil recycled from restaurants, which contains a carcinogenic substance.
The Ministry of Public Security said police first received reports in March that a group of people were buying waste oil from restaurants and turning it into cooking oil.
After a four-month-long investigation, police in the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Shandong and the central province of Henan busted six places that sold the illegally made cooking oil, and detained 32 people.
They also found more than 100 tonnes of the recycled oil made from leftovers taken from gutters, the ministry said in a statement.
