Dhoraji, Upleta units are suffering from shortage of plastic waste. Rajkot News – Times of India

Rajkot: Along with the spread of the virus, the lockdown had also kept another menace under tight control – the spread of plastic waste. Plastic waste waste production reduced by 50 to 70 percent.
While this figure was calculated by looking at the plastic waste coming from Dhoraji and Upleta town of Rajkot, which is the center of plastic waste processing in the country, it has also upset the entire economy based on recycling of plastic waste.
Trash including polythene bags, cement bags were dumped in these two cities by loading trucks from about 25 states. The 550 units here process 1,000 tonnes of waste per day, which has been starving for the past five months due to lack of raw materials. At present, the city receives about 300 to 500 tonnes of waste, forcing many units to reduce working hours.
Dalsukh Vagadia, president of Dhoraji Plastics Association, said, “The entire processing cycle has gone awry. We do not get enough raw material as a result of which many units take two weeks off and work in single shift instead of earlier three shifts. Also the demand for processed ingredients in the market has dried up due to lockdown-like situations in many states.
Plastic waste processing and recycling units have emerged in Dhoraji and Upleta in the last four decades which recycle the waste collected by the waste pickers in the form of polythene bags and low and high density plastic scraps. Recycled plastics are a major raw material for making products such as grain, plastic ropes, which are used in packing bags for agricultural products and are used by loaders to load goods into trucks, baling twins, farm water. of pipes and others.
According to the units, the raw material prices have also gone up from Rs 10 to Rs 16 per kg due to the shortage. Recycled Plastics restricts the use of virgin plastics and Dhoraji and Upleta export their material to Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and some African countries.
Nandlal Unghad, President, Upleta Plastics Association said, “We are waiting for the economy to revive as at present we have to pay very high prices for raw materials, while traders in the market are demanding huge discounts in processed plastics. Huh. We cannot tolerate loss from both sides.