Assessing competitiveness and sustainability of the cooking oil industry through the valuation of eco-efficiency on the utilization of spent bleaching earth

Spent Bleaching Earth (SBE) is a solid waste produced in crude palm oil refinery processes to manufacture cooking oil. It contains residual oil and hazardous metals if not properly treated. Environmental efficiency aims to create added value and products or services with minimum environmental impact. Hence, eco-efficiency can be a suitable method for evaluating the environmental side effects of SBE waste. According to the literature, the eco-efficiency assessment of SBE waste’s aftermath in the cooking oil industry has not been explored yet. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the existing conditions of SBE waste management, which was previously just dumped, and to identify SBE waste management scenarios that offer optimal economic and environmental benefits based on eco-efficiency methods. The evaluation was conducted by measuring the Eco-Efficiency Index (EEI) value in each scenario. A scenario is economically affordable and environmentally sustainable whenever the EEI value > 1. If the EEI value is between 0 and 1, the scenario is economically affordable but not sustainable. Otherwise, the EEI value < 0 means an unaffordable and unsustainable scenario. Between the two scenarios model, the EEI value is greater in the scenario 2 (Oil Recovery Extraction and SBE Regeneration) accounting for -1.790, than in the scenario 1 (Oil Recovery Extraction) as much as -1.963. Therefore, this research can be used as a guideline for the cooking oil industry stakeholders to leverage profit in a viable way while considering the environmental aftermath.