Article: Eco-friendly soap recipe

Monday April 27, 2009

By DERRICK VINESH

EVER thought of making your very own homemade soap?

The Seberang Prai Municipal Council's Local Agenda 21 (LA21) committee has come up with a simple yet environment-friendly way to make soap cakes.

Its chemical-free and pure soaps use recycled cooking oil as its main ingredient.

The committee programme co-ordinator Chew Eng Seng admitted that a few might initially cringe at the thought of using this ingredient but noted that the soaps were unlikely to cause side-effects as they were non-toxic.

"We figured if commercial soap manufacturers could use goat's milk or animal fats in some countries, why couldn't we try using cooking oil, which is generally palm oil, peanut oil or vegetable oil?" he said in a recent interview in Butterworth.

Chew said the objective was to prevent people from polluting the environment when they discard their used cooking oil.

He said fresh cooking oil, coconut oil, olive oil, sunflower oil or almond oil could also be used but noted that it would, however, defeat the purpose of recycling.

He added that the soap could be used on the body and to wash clothes and dishes.

Chew said restaurants which discard used cooking oil almost daily should ideally use the oil to produce soap, noting that they could save money spent on dishwashing and hand soaps.

He said a recent soap-making demonstration in Taman Duku, Juru, received encouraging response, especially from housewives who were keen to give it a try.

Chew said the committee would conduct free soap-making demons-trations at the council's district office in Jalan Betek, Bukit Mertajam, at 10am on every last Sunday of the month.

For details, contact Chew at 012-4779330.

This article was taken from:The Star Online: Metro: North 27 April 2009