SK Chemical to Turn Waste Banners into New Banners... Establishes Regional Circular System

Collecting Waste Banners in Yeongnam, Honam, and Jeju
Recycling Banner Fabric through Depolymerization
Expanding Regional Circular Systems

SK Chemical is embarking on the establishment of a regional circular economy system that covers the entire process from collecting waste banners to their recycling and transformation into products.

On the 21st of last month at COEX in Seoul, the SK Chemical Waste Banner Resource Circulation Project Team is taking a commemorative photo after receiving the Chairman's Award from the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the '2nd Regional-Enterprise Collaboration Community Problem Solving Idea Solberthon Competition.' From the left: Hyojin Kim, Head of the Waste Circulation Team at the Department of Living Environment in Seogwipo City, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province; Jihun Kim, Vice President of DaeHan Media; Youngjun Cho, Director of Sustainable Management at the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Byungho Song, CEO of MOA; and Seona Lim, CEO of Upclose. SK Chemical

On October 6, SK Chemical announced that it has formed a "Waste Banner Circular Resource Project Group" in collaboration with MOA, Daehan Media, Upclose, and Seogwipo City, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. This initiative was launched as part of an ideathon linked to the "Social Value Festa" organized by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

The project group connects all stages of the process—including regional collection and preprocessing of waste banners, recycling, product manufacturing, and distribution. In Gyeongsang Province, MOA and Daehan Media are responsible for collecting waste banners; in the Honam region, this is handled by Upclose; and in the Jeju region, Seogwipo City is in charge of collection.

The collected waste banners are processed by MOA into a form suitable for chemical recycling, then converted into raw materials using SK Chemical’s depolymerization technology. Afterward, Daehan Media manufactures banner fabric from the recycled materials and supplies it to each region through a nationwide distribution network.

SK Chemical’s depolymerization technology decomposes waste plastics down to the molecular level, reverts them to raw material state, and then re-polymerizes them. According to the company, this method reduces the impact of color and impurities compared to conventional physical recycling, enabling it to be applied in the recycling of fabric-based waste banners.

Seogwipo City also plans to revise related systems to enable the entire recycling loop of waste banners—from collection to the reuse of recycled banners—within the local area.

SK Chemical estimates that more than 1,000 tons of waste banners are generated annually across the Yeongnam, Honam, and Jeju regions. According to the Ministry of Environment, approximately 6,000 tons of waste banners are produced nationwide every year, with about 70% either landfilled or incinerated.

Through this project, SK Chemical aims to establish a region-specific circular system that enables waste banners generated in each area to be reused locally, with plans to expand this model to other regions in the future.

An SK Chemical official stated, "Because each region has different conditions and collection systems, we will collaborate with participating organizations to build a waste banner recycling system at the metropolitan government level."

SK Chemical has previously collaborated with cities including Gunsan, Sejong, Gangneung, Cheongju, Naju, Changwon, and Seoul on waste banner resource recycling initiatives.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.