[Report] Abandoned PET Bottles Turned into New Products... Visiting Samyang Ecotech Siwha Plant

First in Korea to Receive Food and Drug Safety Certification
for Recycled PET Chips Made from Both Transparent and Colored Bottles

'Wagureureu'. A flattened PET bottle rolls down. Torn beverage labels are scattered all over the floor.

Samyang Ecotech Sihwa Plant, located in Siheung-si, Gyeonggi Province, spans about 5,000 pyeong (approximately 16,500 square meters). Seven tons of plastic piles are continuously swept into the sorting machines every hour. This is the first moment when waste PET bottles, which were no different from trash, are reborn as rice-grain-sized PET flakes and recycled PET chips. PET flakes are used as raw materials for making industrial materials or nonwoven fabrics, while recycled PET chips are used for producing food containers or textiles. Here, a 29-step process including foreign substance removal, cutting, and washing is carried out to obtain clean recycled PET chips.

On the afternoon of the 18th, we visited the Samyang Ecotech Sihwa Plant, which processes 45,000 tons of waste PET bottles annually. Walking about 100 meters from the entrance gate toward the factory entrance, a musty recycling station smell was noticeable. At the entrance, garbage piles were being unloaded from a top loader to a grapple crane. Inside the factory, plastic waste piles taller than an adult woman were stacked up to four stories high and stretched about 50 meters. These large and heavy piles are fed into machines to select usable PET bottles. The process uses weight differences, blowing air, and magnetic attraction to separate materials.

On the 18th, a worker is managing the waste PET bottle input process at Samyang Ecotech Siwha Plant in Siheung-si, Gyeonggi Province. 2025.03.20. Photo by O Ji-eun

The selected PET bottles are first fed into a cylindrical machine equipped with protrusions that tear off the labels. After the vinyl is completely removed, the bottles go through six rounds of automatic optical sorting systems to be classified into transparent and colored categories. Transparent products are crushed into flakes and then undergo chemical washing (twice), rinsing (four times), drying, and optical sorting of flakes (four times) to produce high-purity PET flakes. Additionally, after nine more steps including extrusion, molding, crystallization, and solid-state polymerization, recycled PET chips are produced.

Quality inspections are conducted intermittently throughout the process via the system. At the end of the factory, a small laboratory is set up to sample and test the final PET flakes and recycled PET chips. This is a safety measure. To consistently maintain quality according to standards, analysis items and data similar to those conducted by Environment Ministry-designated research institutions are applied. The laboratory verifies quality six times a day.

PET flakes (left) and recycled PET chips (right) produced by Samyang Ecotech. Photo by Samyang Ecotech

Recently, Samyang Ecotech has obtained all certifications required to use recycled PET chips in food containers. In November last year, it received conformity certification from the Ministry of Environment, and on the 14th of last month, certification from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Among recycled PET chips made from mixed collection of transparent and colored PET bottles, this is the first in Korea.

All products made by Samyang Ecotech are supplied to its parent company, Samyang Packaging. Samyang Packaging produces familiar beverages such as Woongjin Foods' 'Haneulbori' and Coca-Cola's 'Powerade' through an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) method. The Samyang Group has emphasized the need to establish an eco-friendly PET circulation system early on while operating the PET production business for over 30 years. CEO Geonho Lee of Samyang Ecotech said, "Our late honorary chairman said that we should engage in recycling business as a form of social contribution," adding, "We started the PET bottle recycling business for the first time in Korea."

Lee Geon-ho, CEO of Samyang Ecotech, explained the process of making PET flakes and recycled PET chips at the Samhwa Factory in Siheung-si, Gyeonggi Province on the 18th.

This year, Samyang Ecotech expects an increase in demand sources beyond Samyang Packaging due to the Ministry of Environment's legal amendments. The Ministry of Environment announced a legislative notice for the revision of subordinate statutes under the 'Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources,' raising the mandatory usage target rate of recycled raw materials from the previous 3% to 10%. The Ministry aims to increase this to 30% by 2030.

CEO Lee said, "If companies only pursue profit, they will try to use cheap and non-eco-friendly raw materials," emphasizing, "It is necessary to impose mandatory use of recycled raw materials to contribute to the environment."