SK Chemicals Partners with China’s Kelinle to Build Its Own Waste-Plastic Supply Network

SK Chemicals announced that it will establish a joint venture with Chinese plastic recycling company Kelinle to build a waste-plastic processing plant in Shaanxi Province. The project aims to secure a stable and self-sufficient supply of recycled raw materials and strengthen the company’s cost competitiveness in chemical recycling.

According to SK Chemicals, the two companies will build a “Feedstock Innovation Center (FIC)” on approximately 4,000 pyeong of idle land owned by Kelinle in Weinan, Shaanxi. The facility is expected to begin operations in the second half of 2026. The center will clean, density-separate, and preprocess locally collected waste plastics to produce PET pellets, which will serve as feedstock for SK Chemicals’ recycling plants.

Kelinle, which has more than a decade of experience in plastic recycling and holds 12 related patents, will procure local waste-plastic resources and collaborate with SK Chemicals’ technical capabilities to preprocess and produce PET pellets. The facility will begin with an annual capacity of 16,000 tons, which will later be expanded to 32,000 tons to meet most of the raw-material needs of SK Chemicals’ Shantou plant.

Unlike traditional mechanical recycling, which mainly uses PET bottles, the FIC will be able to convert “hard-to-recycle” waste—such as discarded textiles, bedding, and micro-particles generated during bottle-shredding—into high-quality recycled materials.

“Internalizing raw-material procurement not only reduces supply uncertainty but also creates cost advantages that could help recycled plastics overcome the persistent price gap with petroleum-based materials,” said Ahn Jae-hyun, CEO of SK Chemicals.

Among chemical companies in Korea engaged in depolymerization and other forms of chemical recycling, SK Chemicals is the first to establish a corporate entity equipped with waste-plastic procurement capabilities. This move will help the company build a fully integrated circular value chain and strengthen its future growth engine.