Chinese Restaurant Faces Backlash After Employee Caught Scooping Oil From Street Bin

A restaurant in China has come under scrutiny after one of its employees was seen scooping oil from a roadside rubbish bin into a plastic bucket. The incident took place on August 18 in Chongqing, southwestern China, according to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Gutter oil is a daily reality in China.

This is not going to change anytime soon,

No matter how much the CCP trolls keep trying to fool you into believing otherwise. pic.twitter.com/Xs3s3Tt2Io

— Pseudo Prophet (@PseudoProphet) August 27, 2025

The video, filmed by a passerby, went viral. It showed a woman, surnamed Zhang, in her sixties, dressed in the uniform of a local hotpot restaurant. She was seen carrying a ladle and a plastic bucket while scooping oil from a swill bin.

"I just started working here," the woman said when asked who instructed her to pick up the oil. Soon after, the video went viral, with many assuming the oil was intended for use in the restaurant's kitchen.

After the public outrage, the hotpot restaurant manager, Xiao, issued a statement, saying the woman was working with them for a short time and insisted the oil she scooped was for sale and not cooking.

"She had only been there for a few days. The oil she collected was not for use in our restaurant, but she was gathering it to sell to a sanitation company that recycles waste oil," he said.

Later, Zhang issued a handwritten statement confirming that she had no connection to the restaurant and was scooping oil for herself to sell.

Following the viral video, officials from the Jiulong Subdistrict Market Supervision Office investigated the incident and confirmed the restaurant was selling its waste oil legally to a licensed sanitation company. 

The officials noted that Zhang apparently saw this process and began collecting the discarded oil herself, likely with the intention of selling it to the same sanitation company.

"No direct evidence has been found that the restaurant reused the collected oil for food preparation," the official said.

Earlier in January, authorities busted a Chinese restaurant after they found that it used saliva oil to cook food. Saliva oil is leftover chilli oil or soup from diners' bowls that was not thrown away. Instead, it was mixed with fresh oil or broth and used to make hotpot soup for the next customers.