Paijit Sangchai drops a small piece of laminated paper into a jar of cloudy liquid which he hopes will transform his start-up into a multi-million dollar company and help revolutionize recycling.
“Now this is the fun part,” he says a few minutes later, holding it under the tap to wash away soggy paper pulp and reveal a clear plastic film.
His Thai firm, Flexoresearch, has developed a series of blended enzymes that can recover pulp or fiber from laminated paper such as cigarette packets, stickers or milk cartons that were previously hard or impossible to recycle.
Photo: AFP
First one enzyme attacks the water resistant chemical coating the surface, then others take over and tackle the paper and adhesive layers.
The resulting pulp, he says, can be used to produce new paper products — thus saving trees — or turned into building materials that can be used as an alternative to asbestos, which is potentially hazardous to human health.
DUAL USE
The technique, believed to be the first of its kind, also produces clean plastic that can be recycled and used to produce new products.
The firm was recently named one of 31 “Technology Pioneers” by the World Economic Forum, which said its products were “poised to reduce the use of asbestos in the developing world, positively impacting people’s health.”
Time magazine described Flexoresearch as one of “10 start-ups that will change your life.”
It is a rare honor to be bestowed on an entrepreneur in a country hardly renowned for its technological prowess.
In developing countries such as Thailand, laminated paper is usually thrown away, Paijit says.
“Most people burn it illegally and that causes toxic fumes which harm people’s health,” he says at his small laboratory in a science park on the northern outskirts of Bangkok.
“For people in developing countries who suffer from the fumes and don’t know why they are sick ... it can help improve their lives,” he adds.
And while developed countries like the US are able to incinerate laminated paper such as fast food wrappers safely, they do not have any commercially viable way to recycle it either, he says.
COMMON PROBLEM
“Every country uses laminated paper, in stickers and wrappers of food like McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. That’s all laminated and people throw it away,” he says. “I think this a global market.”
Since winning the Technology Pioneer award — previous recipients of which include Google and Twitter — Paijit has been flooded with thousands of e-mails, mostly from venture capitalists interested in investing in his start-up.
But the affable company founder and CEO is not interested in borrowing more money or selling stakes to investors.
He is looking for people overseas who want to license the technology, which is already attracting interest in countries including Malaysia, Japan, China, South Korea and India.
“I want to work with people around the world to heal the environment,” Paijit says.
It is a far cry from the days he spent experimenting with enzymes produced from mushrooms in a home laboratory after quitting a more than decade-long, well-paid career with a leading Thai industrial giant four years ago.
He invested his savings, then borrowed heavily from the bank, putting up his house as -collateral to keep the project going and build a paper mill in eastern Bangkok.
At one point the firm was in debt to the tune of about US$1.5 million, but it has since repaid all the money and now employs 17 people.
And Paijit is already eyeing ways to turn other problems into profits, including a technique to turn used liquid coolant drained from refrigeration systems into oil that can be used in the construction industry.
“I make a profit from a problem. I convert waste into wealth,” he says.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last