One of them is the Dong Tien Paper and Packing Company, which makes ecological roofing products from waste milk cartons, has been seeing its products selling like hot cakes.

Two years ago, Hoang Trung Son, President of Dong Tien, decided to set up a production line to make the products, believing that eco-products would be in high demand in the near future.

The production line includes two hydraulic machines with the total capacity of 50 tons per day which collect pulp to make high quality surface paper for carton boxes. Besides, the aluminum and plastics to be detached from pulp would be used to make ecological roofing products. Dong Tien can churn out 12,000 roofing plates a month with the production line.

This is the only production line of this kind in Vietnam. According to Son, ecological roofing products can satisfy the demand of the majority of consumers, because they can be used to roof houses or cover farms. The products are durable, cheap and convenient.

The roofing products are suitable to the coastal areas and the areas with hot climate. They are also useful for the chemical plants, where there is high concentration of salt and acid, thanks to the high insulating level and anti-acid corrosion.

At livestock farms, the roofing products can help prevent noise, ease heat, thus helping increase the productivity.

However, the most important reason that prompted Son to make the products is that the products can help protect the environment. Every roofing bar churned out by Dong Tien can help recycle 8,000 waste milk cartons.

What worries Dong Tien now is not the distribution of its products, but the collection of materials to make products. The main material for the production is the waste cartons which can be found everywhere. However, it is necessary for Dong Tien to collect the waste cartons.

Dong Tien has been trying to develop its collection network, having set up 22 collection stations nationwide, while it plans to set up more in other provinces and cities.

In the past, milk cartons were considered a kind of useless waste which cost a lot of money to treat. However, the cartons have become salable products.

Phan Thanh Huyen, a garbage collector in Go Vap district in HCM City, said she can sell waste milk cartons at VND4,500 per kilo to the factory, and VND3,000 to collection station.

Huyen said she can collect some 200 kilos of used cartons every day.

Dong Tien said the company plans to raise the waste carton prices in order to encourage people to collect waste cartons, which will help protect the environment.

Also according to Son, the production line of recycling waste milk cartons Dong Tien is running can treat 50 tons of cartons per day. Meanwhile, Dong Tien can only collect 10 tons of cartons, much lower than the designed capacity. This means that the amount of waste cartons collected within one month is just enough for Dong Tien to deal with just within 2 days.

Paper companies have been struggling hard to survive the economic recession, where the demand for all kinds of paper has dropped dramatically. According to the Vietnam Paper and Pulp Association, by the end of 2012, the inventory volume had reached 17,000 tons, an increase of 27 percent over the same period of the last year.

Vietnamnet