Women are at work at a facility for shelling oysters in Tongyeong on South Korea’s southern coast on Oct. 17, 2019. (Yonhap
CHANGWON, Nov. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — A new production facility will be set up to upcycle oyster shells into high-value resources.
South Gyeongsang provincial office said Monday that the city of Tongyeong will invest 15 billion won (US$12.6 million) to build an oyster shell recycling facility in the Beopsong General Industrial Complex by 2023.
The facility will use lime from oyster shells to produce flue gas desulfurizers, which are used to filter sulfur oxides in the gas emitted when coal or petroleum is burned at a thermoelectric power plant.
Once the facility becomes operational, some 100,000 tons of oyster shells will be processed every year.
The oyster shells that were being discarded in coastal regions will now be transformed into high-value resources and generate a new source of income for fishing villages, the province said.
In June, the city of Tongyeong, the Korea South-East Power Co. and the Fishery Cooperative for Oyster Farming signed an agreement for the production of desulfurizers using oyster shells and began designing blueprints for the construction of the facility last month.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
