From PET bottles to nylon thread
(Top)A group of workers are seen taking out the labels from the PET bottles for grinding at a factory at Savar. (Bottom)Workers are grinding PET bottles. Photo: Syed Zakir Hossain
If you pass through Matuail by any chance, the waste dumping site will not spare your eyes. And also, you will find almost all along some children and women who are busy in collecting something in the garbage.
There are lot of left-out items over there, which are certainly enough to endanger environment, but their target is polyethylene tube (PET) bottles.
It may appear to be unbelievable, but this hazardous job is a livelihood of these people who turn out to be the major source of the raw materials for a cent percent export-oriented industrial product.
Nowadays, you or somebody else have surely experienced knocking at your door by vendors who collect left-out bottles in exchange for money or some daily necessities like onion.
The poor street scavengers first take out the labels from the different bottles of soft drinks, edible oil and water that were dumped in the garbage, and then, sell out those to big buyers. These big buyers, who mainly control the raw material market, ultimately supply the PET bottles to as many as 220 grinding mills, sprang up across the country in a span of only six years.
According to Mohammad Babul, a big buyer of PET bottles, thousands of poor children and women now live on collecting at least 100 tonnes of such bottles a day.
The first-hand collectors, who procure the bottles from roadside dumping sites or from different houses, generally sell those at Tk 20-25 a kg to small shop owners.
The small shop owners sell those at Tk 30-32 per kg to big buyers like Babul.
The big buyers sell those at Tk 35-38 per kg to different recycling factories.
Babul buys these bottles from different corners of the country and supply 300 kg a day to different factories, whose main job is to grind and export those either directly or via some other parties to different countries, especially China and Thailand.
Babul, who has been supplying such bottles for the last six years, said primarily the industry had faced many odds.
Once he used to collect the PET bottles to supply those to different water purifying companies, who refilled the bottles after cleaning those up for marketing bottled water.
At factory level a group of workers are engaged in taking out the labels attached on the bottles collected and in cleaning those, while another group's job is to put those for grinding. The grinding is over, the items are dried in the sun and packed for exports.
Aminullah, a worker of a recycling industry at Savar, said he gets Tk 3600 per month as his remuneration. At least 50 workers are employed at this factory.
There are around 220 such factories across the country.
But how the industry came into being in Bangladesh where China is the key player in this sector globally?
Industry insiders said at least seven years ago some businessmen visited China and Taiwan from where they got the idea of developing this business in their own country.
Sarwar Wadud Chowdhury, president of Bangladesh PET Flakes Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BPFMEA), said this industry was not in such a good shape even a few years ago.
He said he set up his PET bottles grinding industry in 2002 at Matuail after he toured of China and Taiwan. His total investment in K M Chowdhury Recycling Industries Limited is Tk 4.50 crore.
After overcoming a lot of hurdles, the grinding industry is now booming. Different countries import such grinded PET bottles to make nylon thread and fabrics.
The processing of the left out PET bottles, a 100 percent value added product, has contributed in generating employment for more than 10 lakh people, especially for women and urchins.
The size of the industry is more than Tk 250 crore.
According to Tareque Bin Yousuf, a senior official of the Solid Waste Management Division of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), when the DCC in collaboration with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) took up a master plan for the recycling industrial units in 2005, there were 20 small, 50 medium and 130 big plastic shoe factories in Dhaka. The number of small plastic product factories was 25, medium 70 and big 205 during that period.
“A major source of raw materials for such plastic shoe and plastic products factories is PET bottles,” Yousuf said, adding that there is no separate DCC project for PET bottles.
Terming the urchins who collect the PET bottles as 'environment heroes', he said they are contributing in the national economy through natural scavenging.
Meanwhile, Sarwar Wadud Chowdhury, the leader of the trade body for PET bottles grinding industries, lamented that the sector lacks any government policy support, although it has a bright prospect. He said some entrepreneurs from Canada and France are lobbying here to invest in this sector.
He demanded immediate release of the 20 per cent export incentives for the sector.
The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) has already sent a strong recommendation to the finance ministry to release the cash incentives for the exporters of grinded PET bottles, but still there is no decision, Sarwar added.
“Of course, such indecision is discouraging fresh investment in the sector,” he said.
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