Workers sort plastic waste at a recycling center in Busan, 453 km southeast of Seoul, on Dec. 24, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Tuesday that it had approved the use of physically recycled material made of transparent waste PET bottles in the production of food containers.
Thus far, plastic recycling in South Korea has been limited to the method of separating raw materials through heating and chemical reactions, and then chemically refining and polymerizing them.
This process, however, is complicated and the cost is higher than using new materials.
In contrast, physical recycling uses the method of crushing, washing and drying transparent waste PET bottles to turn them into flakes and then final raw materials (chips) through a refining process.
During the entire process, the properties of high-polymer plastics remain unchanged, thus simplifying the overall process and reducing the cost.
The Ministry of Environment issued a notice in February last year allowing the use of physically recycled materials.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
