Local firm making plastic bottles with discards

For the first time in Bangladesh, a local company has started manufacturing PET bottles by recycling the used ones.

The move by Bangladesh Petrochemical Company Ltd (BPCL) will not only reduce the risk of environmental degradation, but also save a portion of around $50 million (nearly Tk 400 crore) being spent on imports a year, entrepreneurs said.

Bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are mainly used by beverage and drinking water companies.

Bangladesh now meets the demand by importing PET resins that are used to produce the bottles.

“We have seen that Bangladesh imports a lot of PET resins to meet the demand of the beverage and synthetic textile yarn industries. Why don't we make it here?” said Khadem Mahmud, managing director of BPCL, which is running the Tk 66-crore project.

Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (Idcol) and Trust Bank provided Tk 45.2 crore, while the rest came from local sponsors and foreign investors.

BPCL started production in October this year and now has a production capacity of 5,500 tonnes of PET resins a year. However, the amount is only 5 percent of the local demand for around 100,000 tonnes a year.

“We'll increase our production to 11,000 tonnes by next year,” Mahmud said. Around 15,000 tonnes of used PET bottles are required to make 11,000 tonnes of recycled bottles, he said.

Three types of products -- food grade and fibre grade items and PET flakes -- will be produced in the factory.

Manufacturers of PET products (bottles) and synthetic yarn have to rely entirely on imports. Bangladesh imported 142,000 tonnes of PET resins in fiscal 2014-15 at a cost of around $200 million.

Of the amount, 78,000 tonnes were imported for producing PET bottles and the rest for the synthetic yarn industry, according to government data.

Nearly 400 crore PET bottles are used a year in Bangladesh. Most of these bottles are discarded after a single use though some people were exporting the bottles to China. But stricter environmental policies in China hampered the exports in recent months, industry players said.

“As a result, we have abundant raw materials (used bottles) around us -- on the streets and in the landfills,” Mahmud said.

Officials of Idcol and Trust Bank said the plant is eco-friendly. They have gone for the venture as growing urbanisation and changing lifestyles have been raising the demand for PET bottles every year.