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“I’m not (from) this background. I
wasn’t a chemical engineering major
so it’s really a challenge. I have to look
for the kind of plastic we can treat.
If a plastic is not recyclable or it has
a bad (plastic-to-oil) conversion rate,
then there’s no point in sourcing it,”
he adds.

The Origin Story
Lin first started wondering about
where trash was shipped to at his pri-
mary school cafeteria.
“After lunchtime, I saw people who
took their trays and threw everything
into trashcans, including food, milk
bottles and plastic wraps. All these
were just dumped into one trash can,”
he says, shaking his head. T ypes of plas tic that ar e r ecy c lable.
Types of plastic that are recyclable.
As he grew older, Lin kept on no- (Photo courtesy of Paul Lin)
o c
t
(Pho
ourt
aul Lin)
esy of P
ticing how wasteful modern lifestyle
is. Reverting Plastic to Oil by millions of disposed masks.
When working in the trading Lin’s company adopts a technology Lin also notes the increase in trash
business, he witnessed excessive use called pyrolysis that converts plastic during the pandemic is choking the
of cargo boxes, shrink wraps, plastic back to its original state—petroleum. planet. “People are staying at home,
straps and other sorts of packaging The technology can convert 10 so they always go online shopping.
materials. Lin tried to minimise the tons of plastic waste, sourced from That probably saves time, but it cre-
amount of waste by reducing packag- factories and manufacturers, to 6,000 ates more trash. The demand for cargo
ing and putting different products in litres of fuel each day. The fuel is a mix boxes (and plastic packaging) has in-
one cargo box. This also helped to cut of diesel, gasoline, and kerosene. creased tremendously,” he says.
down on costs. The company’s research depart- “In today’s world, we want eve-
“I really care about what kind of ment has recently discovered that sin- rything to be simple, easy and con-
environment we (live) in. If I can do gle-use masks which are used globally venient, but we don’t see that being
something for human race, or at least to protect people from COVID-19, convenient actually creates more
for…Taiwan, that’s something I ought can be recycled into fuel as well. This problems,” he adds.
to do,” he says. can help solve waste problem caused

I really care about what kind of environment we (live)

in. If I can do something for human race, or at least

for…Taiwan, that’s something I ought to do.