Have grease traps or risk being compounded
Published on: Thursday, July 15, 2021
By: Sidney Skinner
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.jpg "Have grease traps or risk being compounded")
City Hall staff speak to the eatery staff about the outlet from the kitchen to the drain along the pavement at the HSK Industrial Centre.
The congealed grease is evident to the right of the grease trap above.
The agency’s inspectors recently checked on the grease traps being used at the HSK Industrial Centre and EG Mall next door. “A total of seven eateries were inspected by five HED staff on two separate days,” she said. “No compounds were issued, on either occasion, but the staff and shop operators, whom our staff met, were advised on how to go about cleaning the grease traps in their kitchens.” She said flyers to this affect were also given out to these individuals. She said City Hall would be keeping a close eye on eateries at both commercial properties to ensure that used cooking oil was not being indiscriminately flushed into sewer line there.
The grease trap at another premises at the mall is checked to see if it is working as it should.
“We hope to impress upon restaurant and coffeeshop owners the need to properly dispose of the unwanted cooking oil from their activities,” she said. “It is crucial that they get the message as the sewer pipes have repeatedly been clogged with bits of congealed grease, causing some of the manholes here to overflow.” Sewage from one these structures was found to be spilling onto a road at the HSK Commercial Centre for several days last month prompting action from agency’s HED and Engineering Department. A spokesman for the latter said its workers discovered that grease had congealed inside the sewer pipes connected to affected manhole. He said the sewer line was cleared after City Hall was made aware of the problem. “We suspect that activities in eateries at the Centre and commercial property next door may be contributing to this problem.” He said, if need be, the agency would arrange to have a high-pressure jet of water pumped through these pipes to dislodge the more stubborn obstructions inside. When asked if some fault at the sewage pump-house might account for the frequency with which manholes overflowed, the spokesman said this was not the case. “The operations at this facility are monitored regularly and, so far, there have been no breakdowns.” “Nevertheless, our contractor has been asked to step up efforts to clear the pipes.”
City Hall staff explain the contents of the flyer to a shop operator at the mall.
He said this would go some way to minimising the inconvenience caused to the public. “We are working together with our HED colleagues to deal with the problems arising from the haphazard disposal of used cooking oil at kitchens in this area.” ELLEN of Luyang bemoaned the nuisance created by the stench of the effluent which periodically escaped from manholes around the HSK Industrial Centre. She said a friend, who lived above the shops there, decried the foul smell that wafted into her unit. “My friend expressed her frustrations about the lack of ventilation in her place,” she said. “She has to keep the windows, which overlook the road, closed to prevent the stench from getting in.” She was made to understand that this was a recurring problem. “My friend told me that the manholes had been overflowing, on an off, since 2019, when the Mall first opened for business.” Ellen hoped the local authorities would address these sewerage woes for the benefit of the public. She said the tyres of her car were recently soiled by the foul smelling fluids coming from a manhole at the Centre. “I had been on my way to pick up a friend who lives there. My car splashed through what I thought were puddles of water before I succeeded in finding the block where she stays.”
City Hall staff and this eatery worker check this grease trap at the EG Mall.
She and her companion had been gone to pick up some take-away for lunch. When she reached the fastfood outlet in Inanam several minutes later, she was shocked to find that the body of her car smelt like a toilet. “I stopped by a petrol kiosk later to hose down the vehicle “I suspected that the liquid which splashed on my car earlier was effluent.” Ellen’s suspicions were confirmed when she dropped her friend back at the Centre. “It was only then that I noticed the fluids ‘erupting’ from the manhole. I am sure that other drivers would have also had their vehicles soiled by the stinking liquid.”
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