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The persistence of inappropriate dumping of used cooking oil (UCO) containing triglyceride into water flow has become a significant complication for the purification process in wastewater treatment. UCO conversion using transesterification process still conquer as famous method to produce biodiesel especially in an industrial scale. This study was conducted to reveal the awareness in food premises in Bintulu, Sarawak, Malaysia, in the handling of UCO and support toward biodiesel production. A questionnaire was distributed to 200 owners of various food premises which were randomly selected regardless of gender or occupation. It was found that 13.1% of the participants generate 5 L of UCO per day, demonstrating promising frequency. The survey revealed that 8.4% of respondents discarded the UCO into the dustbin, while another 9.2% and 18.3% discarded the UCO into soil and drainage system, respectively. The remaining 48.1% sold the UCO and or completely consumed it during cooking. It is worth nothing that only 24% of respondents were expressed the interest to donate UCO for free by collecting from their premises. Meanwhile, 64% were reluctant to send UCO to the biorefinery centre due to the location distance of their premises. This study reveals a lack of awareness among local respondents regarding efficient UCO management, mandating the implementation of a proper UCO management workshop.

Kitchen and food wastes discarded from the food related premises contributes to the high proportion of organic waste that end up in its landfill. The methane gas released during the dumping of food waste at the landfills is unsafe because the gas is flammable, and it is also a strong greenhouse gas. To tackle this problem, efforts are necessary to reduce the kitchen waste generated and to manage the disposal of waste sustainably. However, for this initiative to be successful, the owners and workers in food sector play an important role. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the practice, knowledge, and attitude of the food premises owners towards managing the kitchen and food waste in the district of Bintulu, Sarawak. Thus, a survey was conducted among 130 owners of randomly selected food premises. The collected data showed that food waste has the largest portion (46.7%) produced in Bintulu compared to other MSW such as plastic, paper, glass, metal, etc. Most respondents prefer to dump the food and kitchen wastes into garbage bins (79.2%) rather than composting (6.2%), donate, reuse, and recycle. This result proved the importance of building a biogas plant for kitchen and food waste since the respondents preferred to throw away the leftover food rather than composting the food. It will also help to propose appropriate treatment technologies to support the National Solid Waste Management (SWM) Policy and National Green Technology Policy for waste-to-wealth projects.