The World Of Tzu Chi(Vol.116)

18 2019 • 11 eature If plastics could talk U pon arriving at a plastic processing plant nestled in an industrial area in Batu Caves, Selangor, we were greeted by the heir to the plant, Victor Ong King Seng, who led us on a tour of the facility. The machinery was operating at full capacity. Next to a machine, a plant worker mounted himself on a stool and tipped a stream of plastic particles into the machine to be dried before being processed into recycled plastic – a process that takes up to three hours.After the first few flawed attempts, the machine’s gears clicked into motion and churned out a piece of black, round plastic casing. “This type of casing is made of recycled plastic to be fitted onto the wheels of office chairs, preventing the wheels from being coated with dust during delivery. These casings are usually discarded after a single use and are not designed for heavy-duty purposes, hence they are usually produced using recycled materials to reduce costs,” explained Victor. The plant not only manufactures plastic products from raw materials, but also collects used plastic to be recycled. For two consecutive years since 2018, Victor has designed winners’ medals made of recycled plastic bottle caps for the annual sports meet of Kepong Da Ai Kindergarten. The bottle caps, gathered from the students and parents, were categorized by colour, rinsed clean, crushed, melted and moulded into round- shaped particles, before finally being shaped into disc-shaped medals. The recycled plastic particles are generally black or grey in colour and are 30