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What workedA plastic recycling plant owner in Nakla, Sherpur, in a Dhaka Post report · Started in 2006

A 1.5 lakh taka machine turning thrown-away plastic into 10-15 tonnes of flake a month

Started in 2006 with a 1.5 lakh taka scrapping machine, this unit now makes 10-15 tonnes of plastic flake a month, employs 20 people and earns its owner 1 to 1.5 lakh taka a month by his own account.

This owner from Garergaon in Nakla upazila, Sherpur, worked in a plastics factory at Islambagh in Dhaka from 1985, then came home in 2006 and set up his own plant beside his house with a bottle-scrapping machine bought for 1 lakh 50 thousand taka. Young men paid 300-500 taka a day buy discarded bottles and broken plastic furniture cheaply around Nalitabari, Nakla, Chandrakona and nearby areas. At the plant the material is sorted by colour, shredded, re-coloured and sun-dried for two or three days before sale. Output is 10-15 tonnes of flake a month, going to Jamalpur, Mymensingh and Dhaka, with bottle and edible-oil flake also exported. The price per kilo follows the grade: 15-20 taka for small soft-drink bottle flake, 30-40 for large, and 60-70 for furniture plastic. He puts his own income at 1 to 1.5 lakh taka a month, and 20 men and women work there on regular wages.

Lessons

  1. 1.Years on someone else's payroll in the same trade in a big city is the cheapest training for a factory of your own
  2. 2.Sorting by material and colour is what makes waste a product: graded flake sells at 15 to 70 taka a kilo

Published with the person's permission, without revealing who they are.

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