[Report] "Why Recycle Separately?"... SK to Achieve World's First 'One-Stop Plastic Waste Recycling' by 2025

Visiting Ulsan Plastic Waste Recycling Cluster
World's First to Utilize Three Major Chemical Recycling Technologies Simultaneously
5 Trillion Won Investment in Ulsan CLX by 2027 for Net Zero

SK Geocentric Waste Plastic Recycling Cluster Factory Site. Photo by SK Innovation

[Ulsan=Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seoyun] On the afternoon of the 6th, at Bugok Yongyeon District, the last development zone of the National Industrial Complex in Nam-gu, Ulsan, land leveling work was in full swing on a site spanning 215,000㎡ (65,000 pyeong) to build an SK waste plastic recycling plant. By 2025, the ‘Ulsan Recycle Cluster,’ which will be the world’s first to simultaneously utilize the three major chemical recycling technologies for plastics, will be established here.

This site will house three factories responsible for different technologies: dissolving waste plastic in solvents to extract high-purity polypropylene (PP), depolymerization technology that breaks down polymerized polyester (PET) into raw materials, and pyrolysis technology that converts waste plastic into chemical fuel.

Collaboration with Leading Overseas Waste Plastic Recycling Technology Companies... Total Investment of 1.7 Trillion KRW

Park Cheonseok, GT1 Squad Team Leader at SK Geocentric, said, “It is the world’s first time to link different recycling technologies and build factories in one place,” adding, “Once completed, about 250,000 tons of waste plastic will be processed annually to recycle approximately 227,000 tons into petrochemical products.”

The total investment is about 1.7 trillion KRW. The workforce required for the construction of the waste plastic recycling cluster is expected to be 2,000 to 3,000 people per day, and the direct employment effect from plant operation is estimated to be about 260 people.

Looking into the processes in detail, the high-purity PP extraction plant will operate using technology from PureCycle Technologies in the United States. Mechanical recycling technology mixes colors of waste plastics, resulting only in black products, but PureCycle’s chemical technology removes all colors to produce transparent PP. The annual input capacity is 73,000 tons.

The PET depolymerization plant applies technology from Loop Industries in Canada. This process separates waste plastic into chemical basic units, removes colors and impurities, and then repolymerizes to produce PET at the quality of new products. The annual input capacity is 94,000 tons.

The pyrolysis and post-processing plant operates with SK Innovation’s proprietary technology. It collects various composite plastics, melts them all at once, and sends them to the nearby SK Chemical plant for reprocessing into plastics. It can process 60,000 tons annually.

3 Trillion KRW Investment in Ulsan CLX Facility Conversion and Expansion: "Advancing Net Zero through Substantial Eco-Friendly Investment"

The establishment of the waste plastic recycling cluster is part of SK Innovation’s net zero project. Following the ‘Carbon to Green’ strategy announced last July, the company aims to become an eco-friendly energy supplier rather than a carbon-based one. In particular, it plans to achieve net zero through substantial eco-friendly investments rather than simply divesting energy and petrochemical businesses.

Marking its 60th anniversary this year, SK Innovation announced it will invest about 5 trillion KRW to transform into an ‘eco-friendly energy & materials’ company, promoting green production processes and products company-wide. Following the recycling cluster investment (1.7 trillion KRW), SK will invest 3 trillion KRW by 2027 in converting and expanding facilities at the SK Ulsan Complex (CLX) to increase eco-friendly products.

The Ulsan CLX, covering 8,363,636㎡ (2.53 million pyeong), which is three times the size of Yeouido in Seoul, houses various production facilities of SK Energy, SK Geocentric, and SK Lubricants. It is the second-largest industrial complex in Asia and was the site of Korea’s first refinery, established after Ulsan was designated a special industrial zone in 1962.

Choo Minyoung, Manager of External Cooperation at Ulsan CLX, said, “The five refineries within Ulsan CLX process a total of 840,000 barrels of crude oil daily and produce 40,000 barrels of various petroleum products. The plants operate 24/7 with a 4-shift system, each shift lasting 12 hours.”

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won visited SK Ulsan CLX in March this year and emphasized, “Energy will shift from oil-centered to decarbonized, i.e., electric power, and Ulsan CLX, which has well-established an oil-centered energy network, will continue to play the role of Korea’s energy heart.”

At SK Ulsan CLX, nine out of eleven power boilers (devices that produce and supply 500 to 1,000 tons of steam per hour to turbines) have switched fuel from bunker C oil, which emits a lot of carbon, to LNG, reducing cumulative carbon emissions by 144,000 tons by last year. The remaining two boilers are scheduled to switch to LNG fuel by 2023, which is expected to reduce an additional 40,000 tons of carbon emissions annually.

SK Ulsan CLX, View of the 5th Refinery Plant. Photo by Seoyoon Choi sychoi@

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