Recently, the anti-plastic waste campaign has been expanded in Quang Ninh and received good response from organizations and individuals. Saying no to nilon bags, two grade-12 pupils at Bach Dang High School in Quang Yen Town, namely Pham Manh Khanh and Dang Ngoc Trung, have managed to recycle agricultural waste to make environmentally-friendly paper bags which can be used in daily life.
Basing on grade-12 knowledge of cellulose and components of paper, Khang and his classmate Trung, had the idea of making paper from agricultural waste, for example bagasse, rice husk and straw and an adhesive ingredient extracted from fragrant glory bower, a kind of wild plant popular in rural areas.
The process of making environmentally-friendly bags starts from grinding bagasse into powder, boiling the powder, mixing the cooked powder with adhesive ingredient extracted from fragrant glory bower, filtering the powder, pressing the powder to make paper, and making bags. Because of natural ingredients, the bags are safe for users and the environment. The bags take two months to dissolve in soil while two weeks in water.
Each bag costs 300 – 400 VND. The price is not much cheaper than nilon bags but extremely cheaper than paper bags available in the market (8,000-15,000 a bag). These eco-bags will be introduced to environmental protection programs in Quang Yen Town.
Khang and Trung are studying active elements in seafood shells to produce water-proof films for paper cups and water-resilient paper bags. If they succeed, they would contribute to introducing more green products to the environment and diversifying safe tourism products to meet the demand of local people and visitors to Quang Ninh.
Translated by Quynh Trang
