Daily Times

KARACHI: The demand of discarded plastic material including poly bags and sheets for recycle purposes, used for making wide range of plastic items from third country import from Dubai has risen by over 35 percent during September 2016-February 2017.

It was mainly because of 30 percent increase in plastic items, as the polyethylene and pro propylene cost more than 400 times more to the makers of plastic goods in the country, the importers said.

If government’s concerned departments take our issues seriously we can provide more direct and indirect taxes to the national exchequer, they claimed. They said discarded synthetic materiel, polyvinyl compound, poly propylene, polythene, High Density (HD) plastic in shape of rolls, sheets, cuttings, overlapped sheets from third country import from Dubai was cheaper in cost and freight (C&F) to the raw material from United States, Germany, Canada, China, Japan and other countries. Demand for this material for recycling purpose and making the plastic items has increased for the number of reasons. The imported plastic material caters some 75 percent of the need of the country’s household and commercial plastic items including making of plastic toys and sole of shoes.

This import includes shopping bags, plastic packaging material and sheets of different sizes and discarded printed material. The share of plastic material imported for recycling purposes and for raw use stood some 30 percent in the total imports of the country. According to the official data, overall import of the synthetic and plastic material recycling purposes stood at more than Rs 3,600 million in September to February 2017 compared to Rs 2,700 million in same period previous year.

The country’s overall import of raw material (poly propylene and polyethylene) used for making wide range of plastic items, recorded highest increase to around Rs 3.96 billion in same period.

Importers of discarded plastic material: The demand of plastic material recycling purpose from Dubai has gone up 8-10 percent due to cost effectiveness and widely used for making plastic household, commercial items and plastic soles for shoes, said Javed Khan, an importer of at Ideal Plastic Industries.

The traders imports all sort of acrylic and Poly-Vinyl-Chloride (PVC), HD plastic and polythene material from Dubai. We divide our imported material in three categories. The fine quality of material, like single colour plastic bags, shoppers and other hard material is sold as first class raw material for recycling purpose. The second category went to pan shop, factories of packing and makers of household plastic goods and soles for shoes. The third grade material is used for making black colour shoppers and other daily useable items. He said import of the plastic granules from Germany, Japan and USA was much higher in cost and there was hardly any importer who dared to make imports from these countries.

We import a very little quantity of granules (Dana) of high quality which is used in manufacturing of ballpoint pen covers and other costly household plastic items while our 95 percent import is discarded plastic material, PVC sheets vinyl sheets polyethylene HD material from Dubai due to high demand of these material. We import all sort of discarded plastic material from Dubai including Panni and polythene bags. These are recycled here and changed into granules for our domestic plastic making industry, he added.

Crushing and recycling units of discarded plastic material: The wholesalers and granule makers after recycling the discarded imported plastic material said they use these materials as it was cheaper than the imported plastic granules from Japan and China etc.

More than 400 big and small crushing and granule making factories are working in Karachi apart of some in Lahore, Rawalpindi and other parts of Punjab. More than 120,000 people are directly or indirectly involved economically in this field. The recycling crushing and granule making units working in Karachi are situated in Orangi, town, SITE area, Agra Taj Colony, Lawrence Road, Usmanabad and other parts of the city.

Owner of Quality Plastic said the imports of wastage of plastic material was blessing for the makers of polythene bags, toys and other household plastic items as this was cheaper than the imported granules from Germany, USA and other countries. We make plain poly bags which in higher in demand. “We use plastic granules which are made after recycling of plastic bags and discarded plastic material at the factories”. Wholesalers: An owner of a plastic factory and a wholesaler of granules said wholesalers and dealers of plastic granules were catering 95 percent demand of the plastic material items makers.

“I buy granules of three grades from crushing and recycling factories which are used in making household plastic items, shoe soles and toys”.

Retailers: The retailers of plastic bags said they sell all grades of shoppers except below 30 microns. A pan shop owner said he buy panni from local market which was imported item and sort from recycling plastic material for packing pans to keep them fresh. On other hand the environmentalists and health conscious segments of society have said the import is a constant threat to health of the citizens.

Imported plastic waste in Pakistan is being used to manufacture products that are commonly used on a daily basis, including soft drink and shampoo bottles, buckets, credit cards, disposable latex gloves and syringes, shoe soles, trash bags, etc. Heavier consumption of imported plastic waste into making of everyday products can result in various medical and environmental concerns because this plastic waste is toxic in nature, and hazardous to human health in many ways.

Products made from coloured plastics entail higher amounts of pigments composed of highly-toxic heavy metals like lead, cobalt, chromium, cadmium, selenium, and copper.

A majority of used plastics being imported to Pakistan contain polycarbonate plastics, which are harmful and dangerous. Bisphenol-A (BPA), a widely-used chemical in baby bottles and hard-plastic drinking bottles, has reported to be one of the major causes of birth defects and infertility in later stages, along with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases as well, they opined.