Big gelatin maker using waste bone, report says
By Wei Ran |
April 25, 2012, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE country's biggest gelatin producer, in northwest China's Qinghai Province, has been accused of making gelatin from bones sorted by waste-recycling stations.
Investigation by 21st Century Business Herald, a Guangzhou-based business newspaper, found Qinghai Gelatin Co always had a shortage of animal bones, the main production material to produce foodstuff gelatin.
The company made 4,500 tons of gelatin out of 36,000 tons of animal bones in 2008. But the top five suppliers combined contributed only 22 percent of the materials, according to the firm's 2011 annual report. Another 20 percent came from outside the city, where the company built a bone-processing center.
"Many of the animal bones used by Qinghai Gelatin are bought from waste-recycling stations," said a resident living near the company.
He said he was also told by a friend in the gelatin industry that many companies are collecting bones from restaurants' leftovers, said the newspaper story.
"The raw material mainly come from slaughter factories but they are also collected from restaurants," said a worker in a small gelatin company.
He said many of the bones in recycling centers were also restaurant leftovers.
Residents said the company was discharging wastewater illegally, having built hidden pipes to discharge industrial sewage into ditches, causing the groundwater to turn rancid.
"A bad smell keeps coming out of the company and we dare not open the window in summer," said a neighborhood resident. Neighbors also suffered from dust and noise and often found cars covered with white, pungent dust.
One letter complained that the gelatin company was only 15 meters from the residential area, when the law says it should be at least 4.2 kilometers away.
Investigation by 21st Century Business Herald, a Guangzhou-based business newspaper, found Qinghai Gelatin Co always had a shortage of animal bones, the main production material to produce foodstuff gelatin.
The company made 4,500 tons of gelatin out of 36,000 tons of animal bones in 2008. But the top five suppliers combined contributed only 22 percent of the materials, according to the firm's 2011 annual report. Another 20 percent came from outside the city, where the company built a bone-processing center.
"Many of the animal bones used by Qinghai Gelatin are bought from waste-recycling stations," said a resident living near the company.
He said he was also told by a friend in the gelatin industry that many companies are collecting bones from restaurants' leftovers, said the newspaper story.
"The raw material mainly come from slaughter factories but they are also collected from restaurants," said a worker in a small gelatin company.
He said many of the bones in recycling centers were also restaurant leftovers.
Residents said the company was discharging wastewater illegally, having built hidden pipes to discharge industrial sewage into ditches, causing the groundwater to turn rancid.
"A bad smell keeps coming out of the company and we dare not open the window in summer," said a neighborhood resident. Neighbors also suffered from dust and noise and often found cars covered with white, pungent dust.
One letter complained that the gelatin company was only 15 meters from the residential area, when the law says it should be at least 4.2 kilometers away.
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