HYDERABAD: The city’s first Polyethylene Plastic Recycling Plant was inaugurated at Garbage Transfer Station of Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) in Kohsar area on Wednesday.

Chief Minister’s Special Assistant on Food, Abdul Jabbar Khan, opened the plant set up in collaboration with Pak Altas, a waste management company, for handling plastic garbage generated in the city.

Mr Khan lauded the initiative and said that five acres of land had been handed over to the company for this public sector project under which manhole covers would be produced from the recycled plastic.

He said that the manholes covers were stolen daily and hence this project was going to serve people and civic agencies. Land near Mulla Katiar which was sought by SSWMB for another solid waste project was also being given [to the company] by the government, he said.

Pak Altas CEO Syed Ziauddin talked about how his company was now making more headway in solid waste management sector. “We also want to educate people to generate minimum possible waste and segregate the stuff that can be recycled,” he said.

He said the plant was part of a World Bank-funded PLEASE (Plastic Free Rivers and Seas for South Asia) Project. Their company in collaboration with SSWMB was in process to find landfill site in Mulla Katiar on the outskirts of the city in next two years where they could set up the project for landfill garbage to generate power which could cater to electricity needs of entire area and allied industry as well, he said.

Samina Parveen, Project Lead of the recycling plant, gave an overview of the project, detailing how the plastic was collected as part of solid waste and then segregated at the plant. Local community’s women had been hired at the plant which had led to their empowerment as well, she said.

She said that out of 1,100 tonnes municipal solid waste per day collection 176 tonnes was mixed plastic waste including 5pc or eight tonnes of polyethylene plastic and of this 5pc three per cent was being currently recycled to produce 100 manhole covers of 21 inch and 24 inch diameters a day. These covers were provided to civic bodies free of charge, she added.

Hyderabad Deputy Com­m­issioner Zain Ul Abiden Memon termed the project a great value addition in waste management sector and proposed that flower pots should also be produced from the recycled polyethylene plastic.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2025