Used cooking oil in hotels: contract, collection and records in Türkiye

Used frying oil is waste vegetable oil (bitkisel atık yağ). Türkiye's rules on waste vegetable oils set out duties for the kitchen: an annual contract with an environmentally licensed recovery or intermediate storage facility, separate leak-proof labelled containers, licensed carriers with the national waste transport form, and an online declaration by the end of March. Confirm the current requirements, dates and penalties with your environmental adviser or the provincial directorate.

A collector turns up at the kitchen door, offers to take the used frying oil away and asks for nothing in return. The oil leaves, the drum is empty, and the hotel has no licence, no contract and no transport document to show for it. This article explains what the regulation actually requires for used cooking oil in hotels in Türkiye: who may collect it, what the contract and the storage area must look like, what the kitchen does day to day, and how the annual declaration is filed. It also separates kitchen oil from the machine oil in the technical department, because the two fall under different regulations and are often confused.

Which waste oils does a hotel produce, and why do the rules split them?#

A hotel produces two separate streams: vegetable oil from the kitchen and mineral oil from machinery, and each has its own regulation, its own authorised collectors and its own containers.

Waste vegetable oil comes from fryers, grills and food preparation, and from staff canteens. Waste mineral oil comes from generators, lifts, chillers and pool pumps, and from the servicing of kitchen equipment: the oil a technician drains from a machine is mineral waste oil, not kitchen oil. The vegetable regulation defines a producer as any home, business or public or private institution whose activities generate waste vegetable oil and, where catering is contracted, the contracted catering business (Article 4). A hotel that outsources its restaurant still has a producer in the chain, so it must settle in writing which party holds the duty.

The vegetable oil regulation (Resmî Gazete 6 June 2015, No. 29378, via mevzuat.gov.tr, consolidated text (opens in a new tab)) shows no amendments in its consolidated text; read the current text before relying on any article number. The Waste Oil Management Regulation (Resmî Gazete 21 December 2019, No. 30985, in force 1 January 2020, amended 23 December 2020 and 12 January 2023) covers the waste mineral oils listed in its Annex 1, per its consolidated text on mevzuat.gov.tr (opens in a new tab).

Both texts ban mixing. Waste vegetable oil must be stored separately from other waste (Article 10(1)), and waste mineral oil must not be mixed across its Annex 1 groups or with water, solvents, toxic or other substances (Article 8(1)). Both require an annual online declaration of the previous year's quantities by the end of March, and a copy kept for five years. The practical consequence is two labelled collection points, two contracts and two sets of transport documents. One drum for everything breaks both regimes at once.

Who is allowed to collect used cooking oil from a hotel?#

Only an environmentally licensed recovery facility or a waste vegetable oil intermediate storage facility, and only under an annual contract with the hotel (Article 5).

The regulation names the two permitted counterparties and states that only those facilities may collect the oil. A collector who cannot produce a current licence is not a permitted counterparty, whatever the drum looks like. The regulation also bans giving waste vegetable oil, directly or indirectly, to surface water, groundwater, the sea, the sewer, drainage or soil, and bans mixing it into edible or crude oils.

The hotel stays the producer. The contract, the licence copy and the national waste transport form are the evidence that the oil reached a licensed destination, and a cash collection leaves nothing to show. Ask for the licence and read it: it should cover waste vegetable oil collection and be valid for the period of the contract, not just for the day of the first collection. Intermediate storage facilities supply collection drums and containers to the producers they contract with (Article 12), so the drums are usually part of the deal rather than a purchase.

The Ministry's zero waste guide for tourism facilities says used cooking oil is collected in clamped drums and handed to waste processing plants or the municipality, per the Ministry's HOREKA guide on sifiratik.gov.tr (opens in a new tab). That wording is broader than the regulation, so follow the regulation and confirm the local position with the provincial directorate before handing oil to anyone else. This sits inside the wider zero waste system for hotels, which we cover in a separate guide.

What should the contract cover, and what does the hotel keep?#

The contract is annual, so it must be renewed each year. The printed declaration is kept for five years (Article 10(2)). Keeping the contract, the licence copy and the transport forms on file alongside it is good practice.

Check the date first. A contract that expired in March is not a contract, and the annual renewal is the item most often missed when the person who signed it has left. Read the counterparty's licence for scope and validity, and keep a copy of the version that was current when the contract was signed.

Establish who physically transports the oil, because collection and transport must be done by licensed parties and the national waste transport form travels with the load. Agree a collection frequency that matches storage capacity: a drum that fills before the next scheduled visit is an overfill risk, not a scheduling inconvenience. Agree who supplies, swaps and cleans the drums, and write it down, since the regulation places the container duty on the producer while the intermediate storage facility supplies drums to the producers it contracts with. Where catering is contracted out, record in the contract which party is the producer for the oil and who files the declaration, so the duty does not fall between two companies.

How should the oil be stored in the kitchen and in the temporary storage area?#

In leak-proof, corrosion-resistant containers filled only to the marked line, labelled "bitkisel atık yağ", standing on a rain-protected, leak-proof reinforced concrete floor at least 25 cm thick, with spill precautions (Articles 10(1) and 14).

Drums, barrels and tanks must be protected against overfilling and filled only to the marked line. The marked line is the operating limit, not a suggestion. The label reads "bitkisel atık yağ" and nothing else goes in: not mineral oil, not solid food waste, not cleaning water. Containers must be leak-proof and resistant to corrosion inside and out, and the oil must be kept separate from other waste.

The zero waste guide asks for clamped drums and a temporary waste storage area sized to the amount of waste and the local collection frequency, with containers of usually 120 to 1,100 litres to carry waste from the bins to that area. Plan the oil point as part of the facility's single temporary storage area rather than as a separate corner, because the other streams need the same floor, roof and access. Bare soil, an open wooden pallet or a spot under a leaking gutter fails the floor and rain conditions before any question of paperwork arises.

What does the kitchen do day to day?#

The kitchen changes the oil on a recorded decision, cools it, strains it into the labelled drum and logs who handed over how much, so the drum never overfills and the paperwork matches the oil.

Decide when the oil is changed by observation and, where the kitchen uses one, a test, and write the change date on the fryer log so the volume in the drum can be explained later. Let the oil cool before decanting: hot oil into a plastic drum deforms it, and a deformed drum cannot be filled to a marked line that still means anything. Strain out solids before the drum, because food particles in the container are other waste mixed into the oil.

Never pour oil into a sink, a floor drain or a rainwater line; the regulation bans the sewer and drainage route outright. Name one person per shift to sign the handover and to check the fill level at the same time, so the log and the drum agree. Watch litres per cover alongside the food cost report: a rising figure points to old oil, overfilled fryers or a leak in the routine before it points to the supplier's price. The same discipline feeds the wider food and beverage cost routine, and the kitchen carries other legal duties that we cover in separate guides.

When the drum is full, close it, log it and call the contracted collector. Do not let a second unlabelled container appear beside it while the kitchen waits.

How is the declaration made, and what do inspectors ask?#

The hotel fills in the online waste declaration form for the previous year between January and the end of March, prints it and keeps a copy for five years (Article 10(2)); the mineral oil declaration follows the same window under its own regulation.

The declaration covers the previous calendar year, so the quantities must come from the transport forms and the kitchen log rather than from an estimate made in March. Under the zero waste system, equipment, waste types and quantities, deliveries and delivery documents are uploaded to the zero waste module of the Integrated Environmental Information System (EÇBS, the Ministry's environmental reporting system), and the zero waste certificate is issued by the provincial directorate of the province where the facility is.

The zero waste guide sets the system up in four steps: a working team with a zero waste officer, staff for the temporary storage area and cleaning or housekeeping staff; a planning survey of capacity, staff, guest numbers and waste sources by unit; training and awareness; and monitoring, record-keeping and improvement. The guide's timetable by room capacity ran from 31 December 2020 for 100 or more rooms to 31 December 2022 for under 50 rooms, and it states that the legislation requires at least two-way separation, recyclables and other waste.

Expect the first questions to be about consistency: does the declared quantity match the transport forms, does the contract cover the collection dates, is the drum labelled and below its line, and is the storage floor and roof intact. Read the consolidated text before acting, since the consolidated text is the version to check, and the regulation may be amended; confirm your own case with the provincial directorate and your environmental adviser. This article describes duties in general terms and is not legal advice.

What to do next#

Pull this year's contract and the collector's licence, check the dates and the scope, then walk to the drum and confirm the label, the fill line, the roof and the floor. If any of the four fails, fix it before the next collection, because the contract, the drum and the declaration are checked together, and a gap in one makes the other two hard to defend.