Taiwan‘s Mingan Technology specializes in making plastic that can be completely disassembled, and its production of straws that took orders from Starbucks. (Photo source: Adobe stock)
Comprehensive National Geographic Channel and Central News Agency reported, specializing in the production of microorganisms can eat plastic Ming An technology, its new factory in Yunlin Huwei front, in addition to hanging a high Minima (minimal value) sign, but also placed a smiley face, is using a straw drinking pearl milk tea Q version of the turtle. This is the driving force behind mankind’s dream of ending the tragedy of the plastic ocean.
In 2015, a film circulated on the Internet sparked global attention. In the film, a team of scientists used pliers and took nearly 10 minutes to remove a straw of about 10 centimeters from the nostrils of a loggerhead sea turtle. Christine Figgener, an expert who helped save the turtle off Costa Rica, said the straw was useless and that according to a report in January, straws are part of the 5 trillion 250 billion dollars of marine litter in the ocean.
When the issue of marine litter was once again widely discussed in the film, Starbucks, a world-renowned coffee chain that uses a staggering amount of plastic straws every year, took the initiative to take on the common cause and approached Mason Technology across the ocean to produce decomposing straws on its behalf to do its part for the planet.
Mingan Technology Chairman Huang Jianming said that he was deeply impressed by Starbucks’ executive’s remark that “the straws for sea turtles’ nostrils are ours and we must do something”.
Huang, who holds a doctorate in chemical engineering from National Cheng Kung University, found a plastic solution that allows microorganisms to eat, and adopted biodegradable material manufacturing technology to add decomposable materials and improve crystallinity through the process to create a variety of products. Whether it is beverage cups, straws, bread bags, tableware, microwave boxes, or even sunglasses and BB bombs, Mingan is able to produce materials that can be completely decomposed.
Talking about the idea of sea turtles, which are considered as Mingan’s mascot, using straws to drink precious milk, Huang said, “With our cups and straws, sea turtles can also drink pearl milk tea!” The dishes can be washed and reused within a certain period of Time, after which they will slowly decompose naturally; the straws that can be decomposed will not bring burden to the ocean, and the turtles will not suffer from the garbage straws floating in the ocean.
Huang Jianming also proudly told the Central News Agency interview team that Mingan is very good at biodegradable materials, but also particularly good at making and changing patterns, and many products are the first to be made, such as the world’s first biodegradable paper cups sold to Staples, sold to the U.S. White House, Capitol Hill.
Because the Environmental Protection Agency has not banned biodegradable straws, domestic orders for straws have increased, and the sea turtle film has stimulated global environmental awareness, so that the demand for the export of Mingan biodegradable straws has grown explosively, and the volume in just one week exceeds the past year’s output.
Although many people in Taiwan are not familiar with Mingan Technology, but Mingan has long enjoyed a reputation overseas, Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, Costco, Huhtamaki, Staples, Toray are indicators of customers; even the U.S. White House’s environmentally friendly paper cups, Apple’s staff restaurant environmental tableware, and even Australia’s special dog poop plastic bags, Vogue shipping bags, as well as the Epidemic During the epidemic, to show “Taiwan can help”, the mask packaging bags sent abroad by Taiwan’s national mask team were all Minan Technology products. Japanese companies Mitsui & Co. Plastics and Formosa Plastics also knocked on the door one after another, offering money for investment, making Mingan Technology’s reputation in the industry instantly famous.
Although Mingan’s achievements are brilliant, it started from the Taichung Taiping Township’s Wuwei Lane. In the past, Huang had opened a rubber factory, worked as a consultant in a number of enterprises and served as the director of the Plastic Industry Technology Development Center, and decided to set up his own company because he was worried that his students would not be able to find jobs after graduation. In 2003, he set up Mingan Technology, at the beginning, he ran into obstacles everywhere, and was disliked by everyone for the expensive raw materials, so he could only rely on the income from working as a consultant in other companies, and went to exhibitions around the world, and even never received a company salary for the first 10 years.
With Minima Technology’s frequent “presence” at major international exhibitions, more and more manufacturers are noticing that the company called Minima from Taiwan is not tiny, it is silently doing a big business that benefits the earth.
In order to expand its scale and supply global customers, Minima decided to build a factory in the conveniently located Huwei Park of the Central Taiwan Science and Technology Administration and the local government of Yunlin, and the factory plan mainly includes a biodegradable polymer materials research and development center and a comprehensive demonstration plant for green biodegradable material products, hoping to expand its economic scale and increase production capacity while staying in Taiwan. Now the plant covering an area of 5,000 pings has been completed and opened one after another.
Huang also plans to set up joint ventures in Canada, the United States, South Korea, Spain, Brazil and Latvia from 2021 to 2023, “only we move is useless, we want the whole world to move”.
A company with only about a hundred employees, but has the dream of ending the tragedy of the plastic ocean, Huang Jianming laughed and said that the brand name of Minimas Technology “Minima”, in addition to the concept of humility in the face of nature, but also means that small people can have big ambitions, “Don Quixote is also a small one, we To challenge the impossible task”.
In addition, Taiwan officially launched the “plastic restriction” policy for more than a year, becoming the world’s first country to ban the use of straws. The Central Broadcasting Corporation reports that on July 1, 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned single-use plastic straws for four types of establishments nationwide, including public sector, department stores, schools, fast Food chains and other “internal” restaurants, taking the first step toward a full plastic restriction by 2030. The EPA hopes to promote in a phased manner with minimal impact, so that the international community can see Taiwan’s plastic reduction goals.
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