Phạm Mạnh Đình won first prize in the Startup Wheel 2020 for his project of turning plastic waste into bricks. — VNA/VNS Photo Hồng Giang

HÀ NỘI — Phạm Mạnh Đình, an entrepreneur from Đắk Lắk Province, combats environmental pollution by taking heaps of unusable plastic waste and turning it into bricks.

He was born to a poor family in Ngô A Village, Hòa Phương Commune, Krông Bông District, where people had to use fire stoves for light as there was no electricity.

He stumbled upon the idea of recycling plastic waste into something constructive when he was trying to burn a plastic bag to ignite the fire stove at home.

"When I saw the bag melt and stick to the ashes, forming a hard block, I thought it could be useful for something," said Đình.

He travelled to the district centre to use a computer to search for more information on the Internet and talked to his teachers about the idea.

When he asked them for permission to engage in a school project to turn the idea into reality, they, unfortunately, answered a flat-out no as they considered it implausible.

"They said I was wasting my time on a wild goose chase," said Đình.

But Đình never gave up. He turned to a mechanic for help.

Being persuaded by the boy, the mechanic taught him how to design machines and gave him some machinery parts for experiments.

Đình managed to build his first plastic extruder machine several months later, with which won him third prize in the school's and the province's scientific contests.

After getting into university, he enrolled in a course in information technology to learn how to operate advanced waste-processing machines. The university time has completely changed his view on scientific research.

A significant turning point came when he and his colleagues cooperated with Lê Anh Thắng, a professor at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, HCM University of Education, to found Pando JSC.

Their first product was eco-friendly bricks made from plastic waste and sand.

"After Đình showed me a solid block made from plastic and sand, we began to test some of its basic properties, including strength and water resistance," said Thắng.

"The test results looked good."

Pando won top prizes in national start-up competitions such as Hult Prize, Startup Wheel 2020, and TechFest. In 2021, it ventured into making coasters from coffee grounds and plastic waste and invested in technology to produce UNC materials.

When Pando was making progress, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and ruined everything. With Pando being unprofitable, his colleagues decided to jump ship.

But Đình stayed his course. He took on extra jobs to cover his university tuition fees and, at the same time, keeping his company afloat.

"There were times when I felt extremely discouraged and almost gave up, but I managed to overcome it and keep going," said Đình.

Only Đình and Professor Thắng remained at Pando after the pandemic. Their perseverance paid off as a senior at the Southern Institute of Aquatic Research reached out to them in 2022.

The senior asked Pando to help his institute recycle the plastic tarps from shrimp farms that polluted the landscape in Bến Tre Province back then. He believed that Pando could find a solution to turn the tarps into bricks.

"The High-Density Polyethylene from the tarps was different from any substance we had tested before, so we had to re-do experiments on the substance," said Thắng.

Another big challenge to the team was that they did not have the machine to produce tarp-derived bricks in large quantities. The university gave them a mixer and a press to experiment with, but they did not work well.

Pando sought help from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, with which they successfully built a press and an extruder for mass-producing tarp-derived bricks.

The machines churned out 3,000 bricks in March, quickly propelling Panto into popularity. Its customer base has expanded since then.

"In the future, Pando's main focus will be on providing technological solutions to turn plastic waste into useful materials," said Đình.

The young CEO graduated from university in 2024, three years behind his friends. Thắng's words are his best travelling bag for his journey ahead: "If you keep believing, you'll eventually reach your goal no matter how slow you go." — VNS