The Prospects of Plastic

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“The demand for PET is 150,000 tons per year and the market has grown by 20% in the last 8 years and the demand for PET bottles has increased by 30%.”

Growing up in Dhanmondi, Khadem recalls a time when he would visit the Sitalakkha river and watch dolphins swimming in the water. A stark difference to the reality today; he explains, “On a boat ride outside the city, we had to sit inside for at least 90 minutes from our departure because the water was black and smelled putrid.” ICE Business Times converses with the man, who envisions a greener Bangladesh, creating the first petrochemical (PET) factory, Bangladesh Petrochemical Company Limited (BPCL).
In 2012, Khadem visited the leading PET factories in Germany, Austria and Italy in order to understand their dynamics. He states, “Prior to my tour, I read an article in ProthomAlo, ‘Felna Botoler Chin Jatra’, which led me to understand that we sell our PET bottles to China and import it back the PET Resin (Raw material to make bottles) for almost double the cost. The demand for PET is 150,000 tons per year and the market has grown by 20% in the last 8 years and the demand for PET bottles has increased by 30%.”

“I have had experience with start-ups such as Alap communication, therefore I understood the necessity to conduct research which involved travelling to factories in Austria, Germany, USA, China and Taiwan for one year before gaining any funding,” proclaims Khadem. His understanding allowed him to work with the vendors to ensure that the purchase and delivery of the equipment would entail installation, commissioning, training and performance at certain periods with a guarantee. He adds, “The Austrian contractors were required to train my staff and return after a 3 and 5 months of training to conduct test. I wanted them to ensure that the quality they had set forth was being maintained.”
The demand and notion that imported products are of better quality is a common ideology and proves to be a challenge for local manufacturers. To dispel any doubts, proving that their products are of equal quality Khadem allows interested consumers to visit their factories. “They witness how the resin is being produced with the most modern imported machineries. Additionally, there are 8 to 9 parameters for testing the quality of a resin,” explain Khadem. The labs of BPCL have the equipment to test both the imported PET resin and their own product demonstrating the similar quality. Local manufacturers are increasingly interested because it takes duration of 3 months to import PET resin that hampers the production time.
“The bottles that come to us are of lesser quality and they are not presorted therefore we had to create our own process,” reveals Khadem. BPCL has a set standard for the plastic bottles that they will accept such as there cannot be any glue from a label, traces of aluminum or evidence of long-standing storage of food. “We hand sort the bottle with 45 trained workers who manually conduct this process. A German machine known as the Polymer Sorting System analyzes the bottles after they have been screened. It uses infra-red scans that test the composition of the polymer to ensure that the bottles are made of PET.” The accepted bottles are then used in 2 applications, food and non-food. Food application bottles follow a stricter parameter of processing given that they are life threatening.
Khadem’s dedication to the environment is evident in BPCL’s future ventures and their current factory provision. He has installed a 10-kilowatt solar panel system in his own factory. “I believe that renewable energy is critical for a prosperous future. We would like to work with one of our financers, IDCOL. They have created over 3 million solar homes and understand the efficiency of solar energy in the context or our country. Utilizing this energy source for a better tomorrow is integral for the environment.”
Unfortunately, a majority of the population is not aware of the effects of the created pollution to Bangladesh. Khadem postulates, “The consumption of plastics will rise as Bangladesh grows into a middle-income country; it will increase 10 times per capita. It is imperative that we know that these materials are not degradable; improper discarding of plastics will pollute every major body of water and our drainage systems.” The import of plastic is also hampering Bangladesh’s solvency because it cost us hard earned foreign currency to import plastic resin. For a country like Bangladesh, where there is always a negative Balance of Trade, a huge number of foreign exchange can be saved if we start using recycled PET pellets or resins. Recycling used PET bottles will help reduce and reuse garbage and thus in effect keep the environment clean by removing PET from landfills.
He has created a flourishing business from a concept that was only thought of as a reality abroad. He advices those who would like to start new challenging projects, “You should never compromise when it comes to quality because if it is not up to the standards, the initial impression will be negative ad difficult to overcome; either be equal or better than the import quality.” He emphasizes that it takes perseverance and resilience, citing his experience. He says, “When I first introduced recycled plastic to consumers, they immediately thought I was selling them garbage. I had to give them detail evidence that my Recycled PET resin were of international standards.”
It took a 6-month time period from the machine commissioning to the production line with bottle grade quality. Khadem plans to expand the company as BPCL is only addressing 3% of the local market demand, “In future we intend to produce virgin resin alongside with our Recycled PET resin in order to make our company a one-stop supplier of PET resins.”
Plastics take approximately 500 to 1,000 years to degrade and virtually every piece that has been created is still in existence. PET resins are lightweight, easily produced and non-breakable, making it an ideal material for everyday use only if proper processing is administered. We cannot ignore the responsibility towards the environment, landfills and water bodies that surround us. Khadem’s vision to properly implement the reuse of this omnipresent and heavily used material paves the way for a more ecological and environmental Bangladesh.

BPCL-02

 

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