Bhangari shops: Where they recycle, refurbish and resell preloved items
Many bhangari shops have gone online and they are playing a bigger role in repairing and recycling broken things
Md Rubel Khan was 20 years old when he started a Bhangari shop in Rayerbazar, which is a resale or pawn shop, with his younger brother Tajel and one employee, also named Rubel. Now, 15 years later, Rubel and Tajel have opened a page on social media and have started connecting to their customers online.
They buy old newspapers, books, discarded home appliances, faucets, plastics etc from people and bring them to their shops. There, those items are sorted according to several categories before contacting the agents of various raw material producers for sale. In Bangladesh, this is called a 'Bhangari business', which means the business of broken things.
"In 2021, when the pandemic hit, we could not go to residential areas in Mohammadpur and Rayerbazar where we could ask for used things. So we decided to create our online presence through which we got many more new clients", Rubel said.
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Md Ramiz Mia runs a similar resale shop in Khilgaon, Dhaka. His son, a class 12 student named Jewel, works with him. While Ramiz and Jewel take care of the store, Nazrul Mia goes out with an empty bamboo basket over his head and roams through the alleys of the capital to buy used paper and other household appliances.
"I get out around 12 in the day when the males are out of the home, and the women have the time to bring out all the broken things that they have been piling in their homes", Nazrul said.
Ramiz Mia started his shop a few years ago. "I used to work as a labourer before. But now I have grown older and no longer can carry on with the heavy workload. So started this shop", Ramiz said.
According to both the shop owners and vendors, people have become more aware of their presence in recent times. Additionally, the number of bhangari shops have also increased over the years. While people used to throw things away once they broke, nowadays they preserve everything in order to sell them and get some money.
"I have been in this business for 15 years and I know how most of the bhangari shop owners cheat with the weight. I always carry my digital weighing machine because I don't want to cheat my customers. And I think it has paid off. In the last two years of being on social media, I now have 100 regular customers", Rubel said.
The things are bought and then sold to recycle
What Rubel and Tajel do is go to their clients' homes and buy used household things like old newspapers, books, electronic appliances, bronze cutlery, iron, plastic bottles, aluminium etc, by the kilogram.
According to the shop owners and vendors, each kilo of used newspaper is bought for Tk35-40, books for Tk15-25, hardboard for Tk12-15, aluminium Tk120, copper Tk350, iron for Tk35-55, metal faucets for Tk35 and mixed plastics for Tk25-35. The responsibility of bargaining a better price however, is on the seller.
Once they have these old products in hand, they go and sell them to raw material producers, who then further recycle them. "The old newspapers are in high demand at the paper mills in Dhaka, Ghorashal and Chattagram. Also, iron and other metals are taken by the metal companies who melt and reuse it. We are in contact with the agents who collect these from our shop", said Kalu Mia, another bhangari shop owner in the capital's Khilgaon area.
On average, Rubel buys at least 500 kg of newspaper, 600-700 kg of plastic and more than a tonne of metal and iron per month. "Nowadays people read fewer newspapers, I guess because of online versions, so we get fewer papers now. But the amount of plastic and metal is huge", he said.
The bhangari traders generally have a margin of Tk4-5 per kg of newspaper and plastic, and Tk3-4 per kg of iron. How the electronic appliances are treated depends on its condition. Those deemed repairable are fixed, cleaned, and sold in the second-hand markets. Otherwise, they are dismantled for parts and materials and then further recycled.
The reselling price of paper varies by the season. During the Eid and wedding festivals and especially during the mango season in summer, the price of paper increases as there is more demand for it.
During the exam seasons in January and February, the price of paper drops due to the huge supply of old books and exam sheets that people want to discard. In October and November, the price increases again for all the new books that will be printed for the new year.
One major rule they follow is to only collect things from their respective areas and to never try to move to other areas. "Being on social media, I get calls from Dhanmondi and Lalmatia, which is a bit far away from Rayerbajar. But whenever I go to these places to collect, the shopowners almost attack me and do not let me. So this is something I feel stops me from spreading my business", Rubel and Kalu Mia both agreed on this fact.
From cycle, manhole covers to gas cylinders
People sell every possible thing they can to these shops including manhole covers, old cycles, aluminium vessels, copper wires, gas cylinders etc, which means not everything sold can be legal. What do these shop owners do when presented with clearly stolen items?
"We are not policemen, all we do is business here. We do not encourage anyone to steal things and sell them. But if we get a better deal, why should we leave it?", Kalu Mia concluded.
