SK chemicals, Korea first commercialization of “Chemical Recycled PET”

SK chemicals is supplying “Chemical Recycled PET (CR-PET)” to the food container market.

SK chemicals (CEO Jeon Kwang-hyun) announced on the 25th that the company, thanks to its mass production system, has begun supplying SKYPET CR, which is the first PET to which chemical recycling technology has been applied in Korea. With this, SK chemicals has completed the establishment of a chemical recycling ▲ copolyester ▲ PET lineup. SK chemicals commercialized the world’s first chemical recycled copolyester in October last year. “Chemical Recycled PET (CR-PET)” refers to PET made again using a “depolymerization” technology that recovers raw materials that can produce clean PET through a chemical reaction of collected PET bottles. Through this, plastic bottles can be used repeatedly as plastic bottles, which is the point of the “plastic resource circulation” system.

SK chemicals will produce and supply SKYPET CR products from this month and will increase production in accordance with market conditions. In particular, it is expected that the recycled PET market will continue to grow as the system requiring the use of recycled plastic materials is being introduced at home and abroad. The Korean government announced last month the “Korean-style (K)-Circular Economy Implementation Plan,” which imposes obligations on domestic plastic manufacturers to use recycled raw materials from 2023 and boost the use of recycled raw materials to more than 30% for PET by 2030. When the mandatory use of recycled raw materials 30% goes into effect in 2030, 150,000 tons of recycled PET will be required per year.

Thanks to such changes in the market environment, SK chemicals plans to focus on the supply of raw materials for domestic and foreign food and beverage bottles and food packaging films having the outstanding properties of transparency, appearance, safety and eco-friendliness from SKYPET CR. SK chemicals will accelerate the entry of the technology into the textile market. According to a report by Wood McKinsey in 2021, the global PET market is about 90 million tons per year, and recycled PET is about 11% or 9.7 million tons. Most of it is “Mechanical Recycling PET (MR-PET),” and the chemical recycled PET (CR-PET) market is just beginning.

To make food containers (bottles and trays) using recycled PET, it is necessary to secure not only safety, where contaminants are completely removed, but also physical properties comparable to virgin plastic. It is difficult to secure the safety and properties suitable for food containers in a mechanical recycling method that manufactures recycled plastics through relatively simple mechanical processes such as washing, sorting, and mixing after crushing waste plastics. SKYPET CR manufactures PET again with raw materials returned to its pure raw material state by chemically decomposing plastics, so there is no contamination of foreign substances or deterioration in quality, so it can be safely used in food containers.

Jung Jae-joon, head of SK chemicals’ new business development department, said, “In 2025, the SKYPET CR business is expected to grow to 200 billion won,” and, “We plan to realize a “Bottle to Bottle” circular economy through SKYPET CR and strengthen our business system based on ESG management.”

SK chemicals has been building a global value chain (GVC) for the production of chemical recycled plastic raw materials for the past several years. Last year, SK chemicals made a quota investment in Shuye, a Chinese company that can easily collect waste plastics, and the system for securing stable waste plastic materials is being expanded by signing MOUs with Jeju Development Corporation, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, and Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju to collect waste plastics. Meanwhile, last August, SK chemicals signed a business agreement to jointly develop chemical recycled PET (CR PET) bottled water with Jeju Samdasoo.

www.skchemicals.com