Circular recycling plastics – SK Chemicals Achieves Landmark Vertical Recycling Integration, Strengthening Global Leadership With Advanced Circular Plastics Innovation and Delivering Powerful Momentum for Sustainable Growth Across the Future Materials and Feedstock Industry 11-12-2025
Circular recycling plastics
SK Chemicals has taken a transformative step in the sustainability sector by becoming the first company in Korea to secure complete vertical integration in recycling. Through a new strategic partnership with Kelinle, a major plastics recycling firm in China, the company is building the Feedstock Innovation Center (FIC), a landmark facility that will redefine how feedstock is sourced for circular recycling plastics. The move is positioned to significantly strengthen SK Chemicals’ competitiveness, sustainability value, and global leadership in advanced recycling.
A Strategic Joint Venture for Feedstock Leadership
On December 10, SK Chemicals confirmed its joint venture agreement with Kelinle, based in Shaanxi Province. The new Feedstock Innovation Center will process challenging waste plastics into usable feedstock. This development marks the first time a Korean chemical company involved in depolymerization-based recycling has established its own feedstock-processing corporate entity.
The facility will be built on a 13,200-square-meter idle site owned by Kelinle in Weinan, China. Leveraging Kelinle’s decade-long experience and extensive local collection network, the partnership will convert difficult-to-handle waste streams into high-quality recycled raw materials. Waste will undergo a pretreatment process powered by SK Chemicals’ proprietary technology to produce PET pellets essential for circular recycling plastics.
Innovation Beyond Traditional PET Bottle Recycling
Unlike conventional mechanical recyclers that primarily rely on transparent PET bottles, the FIC will process end-of-life textiles, discarded blankets, and residual materials generated during PET bottle shredding. These feedstock streams are typically incinerated or landfilled due to the difficulty of recycling them mechanically. By enabling their recovery, SK Chemicals strengthens its long-term strategy in circular recycling plastics.
The initial production capacity is expected to reach around 16,000 tons of PET pellets per year. As operations scale, this will expand to approximately 32,000 tons annually. Most of the facility’s output will supply SK Shantou, SK Chemicals’ chemical recycling subsidiary in China, reinforcing the company’s vertically integrated model.
Strengthening Cost Efficiency and Supply Stability
Securing a dependable supply of waste-plastic feedstock is essential for scaling circular recycling plastics, especially as recycled materials become increasingly mandated under global environmental policy. Traditionally, producers depend on external suppliers, creating vulnerabilities due to price fluctuations, inconsistent collection systems, and rising global demand.
The Feedstock Innovation Center addresses these challenges by giving SK Chemicals direct control over its feedstock pipeline. This integration is projected to reduce raw-material costs by about 20% once operations reach full capacity. The economic advantage comes from processing waste streams that are cheaper and more abundant than clear PET bottles, which are widely used and therefore more expensive.
This internal sourcing model also helps stabilize feedstock availability, an increasingly critical factor as demand for circular recycling plastics rises worldwide.
Reducing Waste and Unlocking New Recycling Potential
Globally, more than 4.6 million tons of bedding materials are discarded each year, yet less than 1% are recycled. SK Chemicals’ depolymerization process makes it possible to convert these materials into molecular-level feedstock without quality degradation. This distinguishes chemical recycling from mechanical recycling, which can suffer from hygiene issues and material downgrading.
SK Chemicals is uniquely positioned for this innovation. As the first manufacturer in the world to commercialize depolymerization-based chemical recycling, the company can recover materials traditionally considered unrecyclable, including colored plastics, fabric blends, fiberfill, and textile waste.
This breakthrough will allow the FIC to support higher-quality circular recycling plastics production while delivering meaningful waste reduction benefits for both China and Korea.
A Fully Integrated Value Chain from Feedstock to Final Material
The completion of the Feedstock Innovation Center will give SK Chemicals a holistic recycling value chain encompassing feedstock sourcing, depolymerization, repolymerization, and material production. CEO Ahn Jae-hyun noted that this achievement represents a major shift in the economics of recycled materials. By turning difficult-to-recycle waste into a valuable resource, the company aims to reduce the cost gap that has historically made recycled plastics more expensive than petroleum-based alternatives.
Building a Global Circular Recycling Network
The new FIC expands SK Chemicals’ global infrastructure for circular recycling plastics. In 2023, the company established its Shantou subsidiary in China, launching commercial production of r-BHET and CR-PET. In Korea, the Ulsan-based Recycle Innovation Center connects pilot depolymerization facilities with copolyester production lines, serving as a bridge between research and commercial manufacturing.
Additionally, SK Chemicals has spent years advancing technologies for recycling textile waste, including discarded fabrics and commercial banner materials. This accumulated expertise strengthens its ability to lead circular recycling plastics innovation across multiple regions and industries.
About Kelinle
Kelinle is a recognized plastics recycling company in Shaanxi Province with a strong presence in PET flake production and waste plastics processing. Supported by academic collaboration with Xi’an University of Technology, the company maintains an active R&D program and holds 12 patents related to recycling technologies.
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