SK Chemicals to Turn Discarded Banners into New Ones

Supply 200 Recycled Banners to Gyeongju City

Six Organizations Collaborate to Build a Resource-Circulation System

Year-Round Operations and Environmental Label Certification Planned Starting Next Year

SK Chemicals is working with Gyeongju City and others to establish a resource-circulation system that turns discarded banners back into banners and will begin supplying recycled products.

Products at each stage of the process: discarded banners are shredded and chemically recycled into reusable materials, which are then spun into yarn and made into new banners. SK chemicals

SK Chemicals said on November 6 that it will make an initial delivery of 200 banners made through the chemical recycling of discarded banners to Gyeongju City. The recycled banners will be installed on public notice boards and other locations in Gyeongju, and will bear a dedicated logo to distinguish them from conventional banners.

Six organizations are participating in the project: SK Chemicals, Gyeongju City, the Korea Textile Development Institute, Daehan Media, Lee & Saeng, and the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency. They have established a resource-circulation system encompassing the collection of discarded banners, production of raw materials, manufacturing of yarn and fabric, and purchase of finished products.

In July, Gyeongju City set up a public collection site and overhauled its system for collecting discarded banners. The collected banners undergo pretreatment and are then converted into recycled raw materials using SK Chemicals' depolymerization technology. The Korea Textile Development Institute is responsible for producing the yarn, while Daehan Media and Lee & Saeng will make the banners.

According to an assessment by the Korea Textile Development Institute, the recycled yarn achieved a quality level comparable to that of petroleum-based yarn. Gyeongju City's recycling rate for discarded banners also rose from 10% last year to 24.5% this year.

Depolymerization is a technology that breaks down discarded polyester into its molecular components and converts it back into raw material. Unlike conventional mechanical recycling, it has the advantage of minimizing quality degradation while making it possible to turn discarded banners back into banners.

Gyeongju City plans to transition to a year-round operating system starting next year, while the participating companies are pursuing environmental label certification for the recycled banner fabric.

"This project is the first tangible result of collaboration among companies with materials and yarn technologies, a local government, and end users," said Ko Jeongseok, head of the Recycling Division at SK Chemicals. "We will work to expand this collaborative model."

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