The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment said on the 28th that it will extract naphtha from waste plastic film thrown away as trash. The plan was proposed as a countermeasure after the Middle East war made it difficult to secure naphtha.
However, on the 29th, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment said, "It is difficult to quantitatively calculate the amount of naphtha that can be extracted from waste plastic film." As a result, critics say the policy's effectiveness has not been verified. Experts also question the economic feasibility of the project.
On the 28th, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment reported the "plan to transition to a plastic-free circular economy" at a Cabinet meeting. The core was a plan to extract recycled naphtha from waste plastic film. The idea is to sort out waste plastic film from trash discarded in pay-as-you-throw bags and extract naphtha from it. It also said it would spend 21.7 billion won on pre-treatment facilities and the distribution of artificial intelligence (AI) and optical sorters.
That afternoon, ChosunBiz sent the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment a questionnaire asking, "How much naphtha can be extracted through recycling waste plastic film?" The ministry sent a reply on the morning of the 29th. It said, "Because we are in the process of verifying through the project the collectible volume and the level of technology by company, there are aspects that make quantitative calculation difficult."
According to ChosunBiz reporting, the technology to extract various recyclable resources from pay-as-you-throw bags was developed for the first time in the world by domestic small and midsize company CIECOTEC Co., Ltd., and some public institutions are said to be using it in practice.
However, even this technology cannot extract recyclable resources from waste plastic film at a high rate. In response to a ChosunBiz question, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment also said, "Within pay-as-you-throw bags, 35% of recyclable resources (from waste plastic film thrown away as trash) can be recovered."
An expert said, "Because there are uncertainties in the sorting or pre-treatment process for waste plastic film, there are research findings that the recovery rate of recyclable resources is not consistent, ranging from as low as 18% to as high as 35%."
As the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment announced, building basic infrastructure must come first to extract naphtha from waste plastic film. The ministry plans to install pre-treatment facilities this year at six pay-as-you-throw bag processing sites, including Danyang and Cheongdo, and to deploy optical sorters at 36 locations, including Yangpyeong, Donghae, Uiseong, Dongducheon and Hongseong.
Even with basic infrastructure in place, experts point out it remains unclear whether the project can be economical. Yoo Seung-hoon, a professor in the Department of Future Energy Convergence at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, said, "The reason such projects have not been pursued until now is that the expense was massive, making the costs outweigh the benefits," adding, "Rather than recycling, it would likely be more efficient to expand domestic naphtha production plants to support major exports such as semiconductors and automobiles."