South Korea’s leading lubricant company SK Lubricants announced plans to expand its use of eco-friendly packaging for its engine oil products.

Last year, SK Lubricants proposed to the Korea Lubricants Association to organise a consultative body to create an ecosystem for recycling waste plastics. Since then, the Korea Lubricant Industry Association has set a common goal of voluntary social value creation. The industry will start making containers out of a single plastic material, thereby contributing to the environment by increasing the proportion of plastic recycling.

In this regard, Roh Jong-seop, vice chairman of the Korea Lubricant Industry Association, said, “All of the member companies and related industries will do their best to create eco-friendly social values ​​such as lubricants/lubricating oil containers.”

SK Lubricants succeeded in manufacturing eco-friendly containers from recycled waste plastics by conducting research with SK Innovation’s Chemical Research Center and SK Global Chemical, an affiliate of SK Innovation’s chemical business. This packaging manufacturing technology has been certified by UL, a global safety certification organisation. It has received eco-friendly certification. The manufactured eco-friendly container was applied to all engine oil products under the SK ZIC ZERO and SK ZIC World Series brand which was launched in October.

In addition, the aluminum stopper attached to the container lid and the label attached to the container surface were all unified with polyethylene (PE), the same plastic material. If the material is unified in this way, it becomes easier to separate and dispose of the lubricant package after the product is consumed. In the case of existing products, recycling was difficult because the motor oil bottle was made of polyethylene, the cap of aluminum, and the label of coated paper. However, since SK Lubricants’ eco-friendly containers are a single material, they are not only easy to recycle because there are no foreign substances. It will also increase the proportion of recyclable waste plastic.

SK Lubricants plans to continue R&D with other SK companies namely, SK Innovation and SK Global Chemical, to continue to increase the proportion of recycled plastics from the current 20% level.