SK Geocentric teams up with French, Canadian firms on plastic waste recycling

SK Geocentric Co., a chemical unit under South Korea's SK Group, said Thursday it has signed an initial deal with France's Suez S.A. and a Canadian partner to build a joint plastic waste recycling plant in the European country.

The agreement with the French water management company and Loop Industries, a Quebec-based plastic waste recycling firm, commit the three to work together to build an annual 70,000-ton plastic recycling plant in France, SK Geocentric said in a release, without providing a specific time frame.

The three companies are considering making investments at an equal rate for the joint venture, SK added.

The envisioned plant, if realized, will be SK Geocentric's first plastic waste recycling plant in Europe.

SK Geocentric, formally SK Global Chemical, is pushing to transform its business from traditional chemicals to green chemistry, notably chemical decomposition. It plans to spend 5 trillion won ($3.89 billion) by 2025 to boost its plastic waste recycling capacity to an annual 900,000 tons.

It said it will spend 600 billion won for facility investment in South Korea's southeastern industrial city of Ulsan, which includes a separate collaboration deal with Loop Industries to build a plastic waste reprocessing plant in the same city.

In 2019, SK Geocentric acquired Arkema S.A., a French specialty chemicals company for 335 million euros ($350 million).

Loop Industries owns a patented depolymerization technology that recycles waste PET plastics and polyester fiber to the original raw-material state without quality degradation, according to SK.

Suez S.A., rooted in the Universal Suez Canal Co., founded in 1858 to construct the Suez Canal, mainly engages in water treatment and waste management. (Yonhap)