An employee at Min Thar holds bits of resin made from plastic bags. Pic: Aye Lei Tun

A FAMILY business in Mandalay which began recycling plastic bags at the start of the year to help reduce environmental pollution says it wants to expand the operation to keep up with demand from customers.

The recycling operation by the Min Thar business produces resin which can be used to make a range of plastic products. Min Thar’s owner, U Kan Saw, said buyers were initially hesitant to accept the resin.

“Now, they accept the quality and we have high demand,” he said.

U Kan Saw said the idea to recycle came after he read about pollution caused by discarded plastic bags.

He studied the recycling process for six months before launching the operation.

U Kan Saw said one of the first challenges the business had to overcome was to develop a machine capable of washing and cleaning used plastic bags to the quality standard required by buyers.

“We solved that problem by inventing a machine based on those used to winnow paddy,” U Kan Saw said.

The bags are separated according to colour before being washed and dried. “Then we boil them to produce the resin,” U Kan Saw said.

Buyers were converting the resin into plastic sheets used to make caps and shopping bags but it could also be used to make other consumer goods, such as bowls and buckets, he said.

U Kan Saw said Min Thar was producing between 50 and 100 viss of resin a day.

One viss (3.6 pounds) of used plastic bags – for which Min Thar pays K80 – can produce half a viss of resin. Resin is available on the market for K3000 a viss but Min Thar sells it for K1300 a viss, said U Kan Saw.

“Although we get many orders, we cannot meet the demand because the washing machine is small and it’s just a very small family business,” he said. “We are trying to invent a machine big enough to increase production to nearly 300 viss a day.”

There is no shortage of raw materials in Mandalay to support an expansion of the recycling business. The Mandalay City Development Committee collects about 300 tonnes of garbage a day, of which three to four tonnes are plastic bags.