SK chemicals to turn discarded banners back into banners, establishing regional circular system

[Financial News] SK chemicals is working to establish a regional circular system that collects discarded banners in Yeongnam, Honam and Jeju and chemically recycles them into banner material. The initiative aims to go beyond recycling discarded banners once into other products such as eco-bags by creating a circular structure that returns them to material for the same use.
SK chemicals said on the 6th that it had formed the Discarded Banner Circular Resource Task Force with Moa, Daehan Media, Upclose and the resource-circulation team of Seogwipo-si under Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. The initiative was launched following the proposal of a project titled "Processing Discarded Banners and Building a Circular Economy" at the Idea Solvathon linked to Social Value Festa, hosted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS).
The task force plans to divide and connect the various processes among the participating organizations, from collecting and preprocessing discarded banners to converting them into feedstock, producing banner fabric and supplying it. In the Gyeongsang region, Moa and Daehan Media will handle collection, while Upclose will take charge in the Honam region and Seogwipo-si in Jeju. Upclose also plans to link a collection and sorting system based on self-reliance centers with the employment of self-reliance and disabled workers.
Moa will preprocess the collected discarded banners so they can be fed into a chemical recycling process. They will then be converted into polyethylene terephthalate (PET) feedstock through SK chemicals' depolymerization technology. Depolymerization chemically breaks down and purifies waste plastic to recover its raw-material components, which are then used to produce PET again. Daehan Media will participate in producing banner fabric from recycled feedstock and plans to supply it to each region through its nationwide sales network.
Seogwipo-si will work to improve the relevant systems so that the process, from collecting discarded banners to using recycled products, can be applied locally. SK chemicals estimates that more than 1,000 tons of discarded banners are generated annually in the participating regions of Yeongnam, Honam and Jeju.
The initiative focuses on expanding the approach to discarded banner recycling from turning them into other products to returning them to raw material for products with the same use. Previously, upcycling efforts converted discarded banners into items such as eco-bags and waste bags. The task force has instead established a structure that returns discarded banners to the raw-material stage and supplies them again as banner fabric.
An SK chemicals representative said, "By collaborating with the participating organizations, we will expand the scope to regional governments, establish a circular system for discarded banners and create a real-world example of turning discarded banners back into banners."

[email protected] Kim Mi-hee Reporter