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20th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Travel
Plastic refinery process with beauty of color.

Abandoned plastic is first collected through tokais . “TOKAI” means who collect junks from street, dustbin etc place. After that, a group of workers separate the plastic from the same junk. In the next step, these plastics are cut and some plastics are broken and then inserted into the machine to be transformed into little pieces (which is the first step of recycling), shown in the images. White plastic pieces need to be dried in hot sun but other colored pieces take 25 to 35 minutes to dry. That’s why the pieces of different colors are allowed to dry early in the morning when the sun is less hot. Surprisingly, many toxic plastics are found in these pieces. For example: injection needle, medical equipment etc. After drying in the sun, they are taken to the primary factory and ground into small pieces like grains of rice. Then these are sent to plastic manufacturing factory to make any kind of plastic products. 50 to 80 kg of these pieces of plastic can be kept in each bag. How many products can be made with this amount depends on the product being made and its exact weight. For example, if the weight of a bucket is 300 grams, it is possible to make 24 buckets out of 80 kg of plastic pieces.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 07.2022
Date Uploaded: 11.2022
Photo Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Camera: Canon EOS 90D
Copyright: © Shafiul Alam